The Giant Stone Auroch charged at us. It was faster than me, so I couldn't run. The thunderous roar of its hooves on the cavern floor vibrated in my chest like a subwoofer at a concert. I wasn't too concerned for myself, but my charges formed the defensive line in front of me. I didn't want anybody to get trampled so I created a barricade with [Local Portal].
The auroch was five strides high at the shoulder, with a set of horns just as wide. It's head crashed into the three stride wide [Portal] and came to dead stop. A puff of dust accompanied the sound of rock shattering from the other [Portal] an inch off the floor and to my right. A few moments later, the auroch fell to its knees and the Party descended on it.
Grelgineer was the first to strike with his glowing warhammer. The other three Elite Knights and the Elite Paladin all followed his lead and used the same weapon. Kelminlis and Abravamand where the only two from the coterie of Knights that followed Nellamon around that where here. They didn't like being separated their group but everyone agreed it was better to divide the more experienced combatants among the two Parties. Dormankal and Prienshiv had no problem keeping up with their senpai. They may have been a decade younger but it didn't show.
Selenia, Emearia, and Neyoomi were standing with me and Aern'Lenninisal in the back line. The Sacred Saints were firing arrows enchanted with [Drill Shot]. It did very little damage through the [Stoneskin] of the auroch, but it was enough to count. Emearia was firing a low frequency pulse from her finger. I had shifted to casting [Recharge Mana]. My [Local Portal] Spell didn't consume Mana but the [Empower Spell: Local Portal] Skill did. With the Metamagic Skill at Level 9, each [Lesser Metamagic] Ability added 3 to Spellpower and consumed 3 Mana. At 18 Mana per cast, if I didn't recharge, my Mana Pool of 142 would run dry pretty quickly. Only Aern'Lenninisal wasn't attacking, if you didn't count his Summon. The faceless Angel Construct was casting [Holy Smite] in between slamming an oversized mace into the spine the monster.
When auroch started to get its feet underneath itself, I yelled, “Move!”
Everyone broke off their attacks and we ran to the next position. The cavern afforded three spots that were far enough apart to let the monster build up enough speed to charge, but close enough for us to reach those points before we got run down under it's hooves. This time when the bull hit the barricade it fell over and lay unmoving. The Knights and the Paladin charged in with the warhammers.
“Emearia it's your turn. Get up on that thing's head and put it down,” I shouted.
She looked uncomfortable for a moment but then lept into position. The aurochs head was tipped at an angle. The left horn and the nose where were it was touching the ground. Emearia had one foot on the skull and one foot on the right horn. She started launching her [Sonic] pulses into its head. I checked [Analyze] to gauge it's Health Points. At first all got was that it was at 29% of Health. After a few more tries I got the actual number.
[Report from [Analyze] Skill] Name: ? Title: Floor Boss Health: 307/1280(24%) Race: Giant Stone Auroch Stamina: 391/489(80%) Class: ? Mana: ?/?(?%) Level: 9 Chi: 0/87(0%) XP: ?/10000 Attributes Statistics Strength 11 265 Constitution 12 288 Dexterity 10 90 Charisma 8 55 Wisdom 9 61 Intelligence ? ? Luck ? ? Spirit 9 87 Willpower 9 113 Alignment [Chaotic Evil] Magnitude: 201 Path Amplitude Magnitude Karma Points [Good] 0 0 0 [Balance] 0 0 0 [Evil] 127 127 849 [Law] 0 0 0 [Temperance] 0 0 0 [Chaos] 156 156 2151 [Boons] [Skills] [HUD Options] [Abilities]
“It's going nicely guys. We're getting close,” I said.
Emearia stopped firing her attack. Her Core charge was exhausted. She pulled a crafted monster Core out from her [Inventory] and held it her upturned palm. A rectangular card was project by a stream of light coming from the core. [Identify] could just make it out from where I stood. It was [Disruptor Bolt]. She waved her hands, working with an interface I couldn't see, and the card disappeared.
Core Magic involved complex compatibility requirements for cards and the different types of Cores in the body. It was a way to have a wide variety of different types of Magic. The biggest downside was the card got used up like ammunition, and monster cores had to be crafted for replacements. Once she had reloaded, she started firing at the auroch's head again.
“Guys, stop attacking and let Emearia finish it off,” I said.
The team withdrew with military precision. [Analyze] had told me the monster was running low on Health. I had hoped that Emearia would be able to get a coup de gras, but its skull was probably too thick. It was her turn to get the kill. In order to qualify for
After a few minutes I got the kill notice and the lootball appeared. Emearia did the honors of getting her prize first. The person to land the fatal blow also got the best piece of gear.
“What did you get,” I called out.
“A leather apron with [Stone Skin],” she replied.
That wasn't to bad. When I dealt the killing blow I got Boots of Trampling, that did 27% more damage when I was stomping on someone. Aern'Lenninisal got a horn that extended the duration of bovine Summons. For him, it would only be useful for Minotaur. The duration extension was negligible for the month of Minotaur, but significant for the hour of Minotaur. It finally gave him some flexibility with his Summons.
My turn at the lootball only yielded a Stone Steak. It was a Magical consumable that temporarily increased Constitution. Everyone who fought the Floor Boss got some loot, but it was lower quality than was received by the one to land the last attack.
Emearia and Aern'Lenninisal had already started hacking up the corpse to process it and get it's Core. Grelgineer walked up to me with his frustration evident on his face.
“I do not like this new fighting style. Without using a Formation you are doing more damage than me,” he said.
“It's really for the best. It does more to wear down the Stamina, Mana, and Chi. That lets us incapacitate the monsters so the proper person can land the killing blow. I do more damage because I use the monster's own strengths against them by running them into stone walls. Plus my bonus from the
It was just a coincidence that I was doing more damage than Grelgineer. A very pleasant coincidence.
----------------------------------------
There weren't really countries on the continent of Aelmeera. They did exist on Elfandrael, but except for the Empire of the Dark on the Darkstone continent, they weren't very large. Confederacies and leagues of city states did exist. Faction played a big part in who was allied with who. The Elven Faction did not cover all elves. It excluded [Evil] Alignments. [Evil] elves belonged to the Dark Elven Faction, the main Faction of the Empire of the Dark.
On Aelmeera the nobles and aristocracy of cities tended to be a collection of powerful adventurers and clergy. Authority was built on the power of Level. The highest ruled. There was virtually no concept of war between cities on the continent because all the focus of conquest was direct down into Dungeons, not outward toward other peoples. Foreign invaders were another matter. The nobles and the clergy divided authority amongst themselves to administer their local domains.
Cities tended to be geared toward a specific Alignment and deity. This was because Dungeons were Aligned, and the leadership of any city would be oppositely Aligned, except in the case of [True Neutral] Dungeons where the nobles would be [True Neutral]. The villages that surrounded cities were usually filled with people with Alignments closely allied with major alignment of Cities. The village we helped found when we were Questing was an example. They were mainly [Lawful Good] people living near the [Lawful Neutral] city of Everdale.
Villages also might fill niche roles. Shrines were a good source of income for a village that provided lodging and food for visitors. The rural lands provide a cheap place to grow food. Not everyone had a [Personal Pantry] and that Ability didn't allow for the replication of Magical foods. Grain and other feedstock for Summons, Mounts, and livestock still had to be grown.
One of the weird side effects of eating all your food from a [Personal Pantry] was that when you died your body disappeared just like food from a [Pantry] when you lost contact with it. The [Personal Pantry] Ability made the cost of living low, but the cost of resurrection really expensive because of the lack of a body. Once the matter consumed from the [Pantry] was outside the personal space of a living being it ceased to exist. To me the weirdest side effect was that you always needed toilet paper, but not necessarily a toilet.
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Villages served as a relief valve for the culture of the cities. For the most part, communities without Dungeons were left to run themselves. A chief exception on Aelmeera was Fort Kinclaid. The fortress was set high in the Altrin Mountains along the Kinclaid Highway. It was the only land route that separated the League of Slavers from the rest on the continent. There were a series of Shrines along the highway that would let me get to Fort Kinclaid, but I had to use the Shrine there for [Local Portal] to get me to the next Shrine. That meant I had get into the fort legally and apply to use the Shrine.
I had been running all morning when I finally crested a rise that was obscuring the fort. I slowed to a walk, not wanting to spook the guards. They were still over a league away, but I needed to play it safe. I couldn't screw this up or I would loose access to the best way to get Aern'Lenninisal to the Dragon Shrine.
The pass was fairly wide, about a forty strides across. I could easily see the small keep constructed to control access though the pass. The five stride high outer walls of the fort were a hundred strides in front of the pass. Two guards were at the gate, but one was lying down.
To the right of the road was steep drop off. To the left, the small plateau I was on extended away from me for about three leagues. The high plain was mainly grassland. A small herd of sheep grazed nearby. My heightened senses picked up what looked like six human sized creatures running away from the mountains that loomed in front of me toward the plateau's edge. The guards at the gate weren't looking in that direction.
I glanced back to the right to see two more groups off in the distance. The drop off was a cliff about eighty strides down. From there, a constant descent of broken rocks and boulders led to the ocean ten or fifteen leagues away. The deep blue sea stretching to the horizon was bracketed by jagged mountains on either side. I must have been two strides above the waves crashing on a small beach below. The largest group was gathered on the beach. There were about fifty or sixty people with a large campfire and tents. A smaller group of twelve, carrying packs, were scrabbling over rough rocks about two leagues from me. They were headed toward the larger group.
The guards at the gate couldn't see any of the people to my right. Their gate was recessed far enough back for a mountain to obscure their view. There were certainly more people passing through this area than I thought. It was described as a the military installation that stood to guard the lands of Shericaal from the lands of the Slaver's League. Shericaal was a [Chaotic Good] city that was adamantly opposed to slavery. This place was starting to resemble a border crossing station instead of fort.
When I got within twenty strides of the gate, the guard who had been laying down got to his feet.
“State your business,” one of the human guards called out indifferently.
I stopped and said, “I want to use the Shrine and cross the border.”
“It's one gold for a caravans moving through the pass,” he said and held out his hand.
“But I'm not a caravan,” I said.
“Everybody's gotta pay,” he replied.
“Everybody? What about those people that were running across the plateau, or the people down at the beach. It doesn't even seem like they bothered to use this gate,” I retorted.
“What people are you talking about he said,” he asked, his tone a little more annoyed now.
I turned back toward were I had seen the six humanoids running across the plateau. I wasn't expecting to see them because they were long gone, but now I saw dozen people running the same route.
I pointed and asked, “Those people. Did they pay a gold?”
“I don't see anybody,” I the guard say.
When I turned back around, he had a hand over his eyes to shade them from the sun. He was looking down the road, not in the direction I had pointed.
“Not on the road, over there on the plateau,” I said.
Instead of looking out past the grazing sheep he looked me in the eye and firmly said, “I said, 'I don't see anybody.”
“Ah...right,” I stammered, remembering I didn't want to cause trouble.
The other guard finally spoke up, “You know, I don't see a caravan here, just some guy who wants to use the Shrine. He could get away with just paying twenty silver, right Carlus?”
The first guard never broke eye contact and said, “Yeah. I guess as long as nobody's seen any caravans that would work.”
He put his hand out hand out I paid him.
“The Shrine's to the left. Gotta see the Centurion if you wanna go through the pass,” the first guard informed me.
He passed some, but not all of my silver to the other guard, who just went back to lying down.
“Thanks,” I said as I went through the outer gate.
The Shrine was set into an alcove cut into the mountain. Silk curtains were tied back inside the mahogany box that framed the golden chalice filled with an amber liquid. Uniformed guards lounged around in the the few shaded spots that existed in the bailey. I crossed the grassy lawn that was in between the outer walls and the keep, and made a copper sacrifice by dropping it the cup. The copper piece dissolved.
You have made a sacrifice to a Shrine of Travelers. You gain a 10% boost to movement speed for the next hour.
That would go well with my [Quickmarch] Spell, if I could be on my way quickly. I dropped a silver piece in.
You have made a sacrifice to a Shrine of Travelers. You gain a 10% boost to movement speed for the next day.
Much better. The guards that were awake didn't even bother to address me. I made my way to the next gate. Two more guards stood to challenge me.
“State your business,” one said, with less enthusiasm than the first set of guards had.
“I need cross the border,” I explained.
“Gotta see the Centurion,” the first guard replied. “Padric, take him up.”
The other man grumbled, but turned and walked into a open doorway behind him. I followed. It was a small room with wooden bench and a rack of spears. There was a set of stairs on the other side of the room. The guard was already climbing them when I entered the room so I sprinted a little to catch up. The stairs turned once and then exited onto a battlement. It ran the full forty strides of space between the mountains on either side of the pass.
We came out on the far left side of the battlement. To my left was door made of wooden oak planks joined by metal bands at the top and bottom. A guard stood at attention in from the door. My escort turned right and started moving down the walkway. There was another guard at the doorway on the other end, but Padric stopped short in front of man with more elaborate uniform who was scanning the countryside with a large magnifying lens.
Padric came to an abrupt stop, and faced left to look across the parapet. He barked out, “Centurion! Legionnaire Padric reports with a man petitioning to enter the land of the slavers, Sir!”
The man seemed to ignore the comment for almost a minute, but eventually lowered his lens and turned back to me.
He had a malicious sneer on his his face, saying, “What business to you have with the slavers?”
“None. I need to get the Dragon Shrine in Korchik,” I answered.
He snapped his magnifying glass back up to his face and studied me. It magnified his eye to the size of a grapefruit.
“Do you know what I do here,” he asked.
“Uh...Lead the garrison,” I answered.
He shouted “Precisely!” He lowered his a voice but spoke with intensity, “I must provide leadership against the vile slavers. Their tyranny and oppression know no bounds. I must be on constant guard against people trying to deceive me in order to get by, but it never works! Do you know why?”
“Uh...no. Why doesn't it work?”
“Because I'm always on guard! Before I came here there were hundreds of people trying to sneak across the border. Not. Any. More. There are a lot of tunnels we have to watch, but my clever search pattern anticipates their every possible move. They have learned to fear me! They know better than to try. Right, Padric?”
“Yes, Centurion Daavee! We no longer see the invaders in our tunnels, Sir,” Padric yelled back.
The Legionnaire's eyes darted back to me with a slightly fearful look. I was getting a 'Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz' vibe.
The Centurion's malicious sneer returned, and said, “Did you think I would not be on guard against you too? No one goes into the slaver's territory alone. They will throw you in irons. Your ruse has failed! I know your trying to distract me while your [Evil] friends try to sneak by!”
He swung back to looking out over the view below. He would search back and forth until something caught his attention. He never spent more than few moments looking at one spot returning to scanning. I looked out over the incline leading down to forest and rolling hills. Besides the uneven forest canopy I could see the Ocean off in the distance. I didn't see anything special. I turned back to Legionnaire Padric. He shrugged and then went back to staring ahead.
After a few minutes of the Centurion ignoring me I asked, “Does this mean I can go across the border?”
“I don't let slavers cross the border,” he snapped back.
I thought for second and then I said, “I came from Shericaal. Since you've stopped all the slavers, I can't be slaver, right?”
He froze for second and face me.
“You could have used a gate,” he suggested.
“But then I could have gone back through the gate too,” I answered.
“Hmmm. Very well. You passed my test. I knew you weren't a slaver all along, but I had to make sure you could stand up to questioning if the slavers caught you,” he explained. “Why do you want to cross again?”
“I need to get to the Dragon Shrine in the Dungeon at Korchik,” I said.
“Your going to sneak into the Dungeon,” he asked.
“I was going to buy a pass from the Adventurer's Guild in Korchik. I'm not sneaking into the Dungeon, just into the Slavers League. I was told they wont try to capture me in public,” I said.
“Yes...yes! I will help you. I will lord my victory over my archnemisis Vandra. That wicked woman needs to be taught a lesson! We can sneak you into the low tunnels down by the shore,” he offered.
“Actually-,”
“No. She'd look there first. She must know I love the beach. We can use the long tunnel. It comes out two leagues that direction,” I said.
“I don't need-,” I tried to say.
“She probably has that entrance guarded. It's really a beautiful spot-,” he said.
I interrupted him and said, “Centurion, I don't need your help. I have a Spell that uses Shrines to let me travel quickly. I just need your permission.”
He leaned back, and smiled, saying, “Of course. You could have gone at anytime, but you respect my authority. Permission granted!”
In my head I heard Cartman saying, 'respect my author-uh-tie!'
“Thank you, Centurion. Is that all?”
He acceded, saying “Yes. You may go. When my plan succeeds report back to me. I want to rub it Vandra's face in it.”
I thanked him and went back town the stairs.
When we were out of earshot I asked, “Is he always like that?”
The Legionnaire said, “Yeah. He's the youngest son of noble in Shericaal. They sent him out here two years ago because he insulted the wrong person. He mostly talks to himself. There's not much else to entertain us out here.”
I knew there were people that behaved the way Daavee did on Earth, I mean Twitter taught me that much. I guess that's what happens when you combine a lack of mass media with an acceptance of nobility. Self reflection disappears.
“Do you like music,” I asked.
“Sure,” he answered.
I unloaded a hundred of Allalessa's albums on him. If I ever needed to sneak through here again it would help to have friends.
Looking out from the battlements put enough information in my [Map] so I could get close to the next Shrine on my path. With traveling back to Aeseiriral every night for training and delves, It took three more days for me get into Korchik and make it down to the the 9th Level of the [True Neutral] Dungeon entrance, where the Dragon Shrine was. Centurion Daavee was very pleased his plan had worked.