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Past the door, this cavern was more manmade than it was naturally occurring. There was still a drip-drip of water off stalactites in some dark corners. But for the most part, the cacophonous chamber was a regular thieves’ den. Simple wooden chairs and a table sat strewn about, a deck of cards knocked over mid-game. There were no torches, adequate light beaming into the chamber from five holes in the rocky roof far above.
It was quite the drop, from these high shafts up in the roof into the chamber. Calaf’s enhanced scouting skills activated again with scarcely any input on his part. A table broken inward provided evidence enough: nobody ever imagined someone would circumvent their traps and locks by simply diving down from such suicidal heights.
Pitched battles and general panic came from a narrow hallway flanked with braziers, one of which was toppled over, covering the path in smoldering ashes. Other, less immediate and more forlorn mewls of distress came from a staircase chiseled into the rocks. Calaf tried this second pathway.
Another locked door was no match for his unbreakable relic. So perceptive was Calaf that he could very nearly make out a mental image of the next room before he opened the door. The Interface enhanced his ears and general mental map well beyond what any ordinary human could hope to achieve without its blessing. With sight beyond sight, he knew the room beyond was empty before he even laid eyes on it. Just empty tables and a jailer’s setup of sorts, cell keys waiting on rings on the wall. The guards had filed out – upstairs, judging by the faint dusty footprints, on quick notice. And beyond all that, there were some cries and pouts behind a grated door.
Still alone, Calaf ignored the cell keys and opened the barred doors with his lockpick.
A dozen people from all walks of life sat in a narrow holding cell, trapdoor shaft angling into the cells from up in the ceiling. Well, Calaf supposed that’s where the false entrance led to.
“Fear not. I’m getting you out of here,” he said immediately.
The prisoners were mostly pilgrims and all out-of-towners. People who’d responded to ads on the Firefield bulletin board not knowing that they’d been walking into a hot spot for the local theives’ guild.
“They were holding us for ransom,” said one particularly terrified woman listed in the Interface as Talia of Granite Pass. “Only, so many of us couldn’t pay. They took people who’d been in here longer than a few weeks further in. To the kitchen, they called it. Nobody ever came back from that. And there’s always a smell wafting up from the kitchen…”
“You’re safe now,” Calaf assured her. “I will escort you to the door. Then, I’m going to confirm that this branch of the thieves’ guild is shut down for good.”
Calaf ensured the path back upstairs and over to the trapdoor was clear, then escorted the former prisoners to safety. He’d make a fair scout, to be quite honest.
“Watch out for the trap door again,” Calaf said, holding the door open for everyone. “There should be no further traps. Go, go!”
“Thank you so much,” Talia said, at the back of the group. “I’d offer to trade with you, but they forced us to trade our gold away before they’d give us any amount of food at all.”
Calaf’s own captivity by the corrupt clerics and secret thieves of the Port Town guild left him with nothing but sympathy.
“I’ll trade you each a few hundred gold to at least get you a room in town,” Calaf said. “Head to the Firefield cathedral. Surely, they shall provide charity to get you back to Granite Pass.”
Calaf opened his trade interface and handed everyone in the cell a small pittance from his already-diminished sums. He would still have enough, and these impoverished victims of the thieves' guild needed it more. Charity was the cornerstone of chivalry, after all.
Before you go, do you know who was running this operation?”
“Few days ago, they said some new guy came in from their main base of operations. Shook up the place – halved our rations, even after we traded all our gold away! They mentioned the name Metz.”
“Ah, that dastard again.” Calaf’s face scrupled up, stern. “I’ll see if I can’t get your gold back. And see if I can’t bring this apostate in alive.”
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The boon of the holy relic was bringing Calaf a bit of unearned confidence. He was still under-leveled for the region, well below Metzger’s level.
Still, the din of battle had not abated yet. Someone was clearing out this thief’s safe house without him. Maybe it was the church?
The tunnels of this thief’s abode were winding, often doubling back or appearing to have a dead end. Secret passages revealing the true route were no match for Calaf’s newly heightened perceptive abilities.
It was after two or three of these false dead-ends and a couple of warehouses that Calaf found his first other living non-captive. A man in hooded thief garb sat sprawled out amidst a wreckage of many barrels. Someone had tossed him through multiple casks of smuggled wine and continued onward as if they’d barely even noticed the roadblock at all.
“You’ll live.” Calaf knelt at this man’s side. “You didn’t even dip into single-digit HP. Your boss. Metzger Cross, disgraced bishop of Port Town. Where is he?”
“Ah. Attacked. By some crazy couple. Jumped down from the ceiling. I only know that there was a bounty out on ‘em. And…” the man coughed up some blood. “She shot me. Cut through all armor, and it ignores damage resistance stats. That’s not…”
Calaf frowned. “Sounds familiar. They still here?”
The thief nodded. “Storming through the halls, cutting down everyone they find. Metz should have a trap set up for them.”
“I would quite like to see the trap that can hold her.” Calaf smiled at the thought.
Jelena was a regular escape artist. Quite skilled at wiggling out of any prickly situation her pursuers tried to throw at her. Not… not that Calaf was impressed by her or anything! She was a heretic, and escaping church hunters was a sin, and therefore bad.
Calaf looked at this thief’s wound. Once more, his perception chimed in:
Special Effect: Medical Diagnosis
Description: At a glance, determine medical conditions not appearing on the menu.
“You’re bleeding out,” he said. “Not in a way that the Interface can display as a status effect. It seems… internal. A hidden head wound. Trained healers would have to spot it, and even then, it’s only by luck that they’d catch it in time. Here.”
The Stalwart traded the injured thief for some medical herbs, a basic healing item.
“That should keep you alive until the church authorities arrive.”
Calaf left the groaning thief behind and continued forth.
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Next up was an armory. Weapons were all taken in a rush. But there was plenty of armor.
Firefield armor was red, forged of a specific mineral in the rocky crags that pockmarked the desert. It was tough comparable to steel even before being properly forged by a skilled smith.
One problem: the level requirement started at thirty-eight. The defense stats were useful in and of themselves. But there’d be a definite agility bonus until Calaf managed to get out of these level twenty doldrums.
Stuffed into trunks were far more than simple armor. There were clothes and all manner of effects unlawfully traded off of captive prisoners. Still no sign of the pilfered gold, but it appeared the guild was pawning off weapons and armor from their victims.
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None of this belonged to the guild, meaning taking the armor was not technically stealing. More reappropriating it for more chivalrous ends.
Calaf donned the armor:
Item:
RedStone Mail
Description:
+2 to Endurance. +5 to Physical Defense and Any Technique-based Barriers.
PENALTY: -2 Agility Prior to Level 38
A definitive upgrade, even with the penalty. Agility was a dump stat for Paladins, with any penalties offset by his possession of the lockpicks.
Calaf took the pilfered armor and donned it. He kept Jorge’s old if imperfect shield – off-level penalties for weaponry and arms were generally more severe, as well as his fluted spear – still viable given its offensive modifications.
The sounds of battle were growing louder ahead. It was not long before a familiar voice echoed down the winding halls…
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“C’mon, Metz! Keep running all you want. I’ll find you.”
Shrill. Excitable. Cocky. Suave. Surprisingly feminine despite all that lad-like bravado. Yep, that was Jelena alright.
There was an echoing blast from Jelena’s weird handheld explosive weapon, muffled as if it were behind a thick metal slab.
“She’s in the containment chamber. We’ve got her.”
Calaf moved faster. His two targets were fighting each other!
“Evacuate. Clear everything that’s not nailed down,” came Metzger’s telltale delta drawl. “Have all our local contacts go to ground for at least a year.”
“A year!? That’s longer than we’re laying low in Port Town. Boss, we’ve got her. We can starve her out and put her with the rest of the prisoners. She ain’t even on the Menu, she don’t even have to consent to a trade!”
There was a crunching sound followed by a collapsing table, indicating Metzger’d just hit one of his subordinates.
“And has anyone seen her attack dog?” Metzger asked.
One final, flimsy wooden door stood between Calaf and this altercation. There was a pounding on a metal door somewhere beyond all that – not concerned sounding, more probing. The stalwart had the element of surprise. Now, how to use it…
Footsteps sounded from the chamber beyond.
“Attack. Attack by the lower loading docks. And it’s – it’s not him.”
There were whispered murmurs followed by scurrying footsteps.
“Come back. You rats. Cowards. Bah, rather fight the church than that unbranded freak of nature.”
Now was Calaf’s chance, as good as any. He threw open the door and yelled:
“Halt right there, criminal scum!”
Metzger wheeled around. A paltry collection of relatively lower-level thieves crowded around him.
“You again?” Metzger said, more annoyed than anything.
Calaf held his spear up alongside the buckler shield.
“Another raid!?” cried a thief. “They’re at all the entrances. Hunters at the loading dock, Jelena at the oasis-side port. There’s no way out, man!”
Metzger socked this guy in the face too.
“There’s only one of them here. Just power through and we’ll escape out the front.” Metzger pulled out dual daggers, a thief-class specialty.
Either one of these daggers had an attack value comparable to Calaf’s spear. Such was the advantage of higher levels. And Calaf’s hand-me-down shield didn’t even have one hundred percent physical resistance. But that was not to say he was completely out of his depth.
Metzger lunged at Calaf. The one person between what remained of the thieves' guild and escape. The daggers would allow the rogue bishop to attack twice in each turn. Calaf would have to stop the first blow…
Class Technique: Parry
Description: Timed right, will cast a blade, spear, or particularly sharp claw aside and leave the opponent vulnerable to a counterattack.
Calaf braced with the shield, then, just as soon as the dagger met the banded steel, he thrust it aside. The daggers went sliding off to the side, harmless. Metzger reeled back, exposed.
“Ha!” Calaf had at his foe, delivering a mighty spear thrust that the parried Metzger was unable to defend against. The blow struck true.
Name:
Metzger Cross
Status
54/67 (Parried!)
Were they at level, Metzger would have been left with sub-fifty percent HP. The under-leveled blow still hurt quite a bit and left Mezger reeling, off guard.
Many more successful parries would be required to best Metzger. But Calaf was off to a good start!
“Nosy little rat,” Metzger said, shaking off his wound.
There was a commotion from a far hallway. Many more thieves took off running.
“They’re here. Hunters, run!”
Only, Calaf was standing, shield up, in the doorway that offered escape.
Metzger lunged again. Calaf braced for another parry, knowing it would be more difficult to take his opponent off guard from this point onward.
The duel was interrupted as twin slices from a massive blade bypassed the doors and hallways by cutting a wide swathe through the very wall.
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Calaf’s vision was covered in dust as his body was nearly buried in rubble. When he next came to, he heard screaming and the frantic movement of shadows from beyond a curtain of soot.
“Alright, that takes care of that,” came a rather signature twangy accent.
Three figures moved about; shadows elongated in the fog.
“C’mon, some of us have accuracy modifiers we’re bound to, here,” said that familiar twang. “Old Walt will accidentally bisect one of us. Clear out this smoke, will you?”
There was a strum of a tense string.
“Oh, very well.”
Class Skill: Song of Cleansing
Effect: Clears out Atmospheric Disturbances. Dispels debuffs.
With another quick strumming of strings, a great breeze suddenly flushed the cavern of all smoke, smog, and dust. The winds moved fast, emanating from a figure in a brightly colored ensemble common to mercenaries in certain higher-level portions of the line. This figure had shoulder-length, somewhat androgynous hair, and carried a ruan, a musical implement common across the sea.
Name:
Klavier, the Bard
Rank:
Hunter, Most Holy Church of the Menu.
Level:
75
Status:
360/360
Weapons:
Mithril Ruan +5
Another church hunter. And a bard at that. Bards were rare – some obscure path high up on the battlemage’s class progression chart.
The second figure was Walter, that hunter who’d solo’d the dire-worm on the plains. His sword was about as long as the hallway was wide.
Calaf got up to one knee. He was injured. Hovering around 15 HP. Seemed to have taken a blow at some point while everyone was hacking at each other in the dust and rubble.
Over in one corner was Metzger’s torso. Over in another was his bottom half. -40 HP. Deader than dead. Plenty of other thieves lay dead here and there. No doubt all one-shot by Walter’s sword.
“Walt. You missed one,” said a third figure. “Seems your sword is growing a little dull, oh scion of wrath.”
Baldr appeared, looking exactly as he looked at Port Town. He looked down at Calaf, still kneeling.
“Do I know you?”
Ah, he didn’t recognize the Stalwart at least. Baldr looked down with a puzzled frown, seeming to have never seen Calaf’s face at all. Perhaps that was for the best. Walter or the bard could be better suited for reasoning with, even.
“Everyone. This was a thieves guild operation. They were kidnapping people.”
“Don’t care,” Baldr said simply. “Just taking out the trash, yeah?”
“They have.” Calaf tried rising, only to fall back to one knee. “Jelena. The relic thief. Behind that door.”
The steel door was quiet. But if it was indeed a trap, where else could she be?
“Hmmm. That other bounty we’ve been tasked with eliminating.” Baldr thought about it a moment. “Well, I’m sure it’s nothing three top-ranking church hunters can’t deal with.”
“I’ve already rescued the prisoners,” Calaf managed.
“Ah, and you let them go?” Still, Baldr didn’t seem to recognize the Stalwart. “Now we’re going to have to track them down. It’ll be a huge mess. Going to have to get a level eighty-plus Scout in here and everything.”
Baldr looked to Walter, then made an unsubtle head-nudging motion towards Calaf.
“What are you,” Calaf began.
“This man is under-level,” Walter said. “Hardly a fair fight.”
“So was Metz,” Baldr said, indignant.
“He swung first.”
Over near the door, the bard strummed his ruan.
“Gentlemen. No need to argue. Allow me.”
Again, he strummed out a song:
Class Ability: Tune of Empowering
Effect: Raises target to caster’s level for the duration of the song (three minutes twenty seconds). Does not incur stat bonuses, does heal to max HP as if leveled up. Allows equipping of weapons and armor.
Calaf felt a surge of power raise him to level 75 in an instant. The agility debuff from wearing this hefty, reddish-colored armor was lifted. And while he didn’t benefit from the thousands of HP he could expect at that level, his wounds were healed in an instant.
Perhaps this was the start of his weak to strong fantastic progression leveling journey, that would see him raised to the heights of power with an epic cheat skill and the power of inner cultivation. Yes, truly that lopsided luck stat was paying dividends now.
“I’m… thank you, good sirs!” Calaf rose to his feet.
Immediately, a slender and thread-thin blade pierced his body, slicing through his shoulder. His armor was cut through in an instant – the level thirty cap was nothing against Walter’s overpowered one-handed sword swing.
Damage was catastrophic, so much so that Calaf couldn’t even see his HP in the interface. No status effects either, though a blow of such strength almost certainly induced shock and stun at least. Vision grew blurry with a red overlay. That was probably bad.
“There. He’s at level. It’s legitimate prey,” said Walter, emotionless.
“There we go,” Baldr said. “Still got it, Walt.”
The trio started talking about other things all nonchalant-like. But Calaf couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. He stayed there on his knees, sword embedded deep in the gaping wound.
“Oh, don’t just leave him there to bleed out,” Klavier said. “It’s hardly sporting. Rather inhumane, don’t you think? We have appearances to keep up.”
“Eh, don’t care.” Baldr shrugged. “Rip the sword out of him or not. He’ll die eventually.”
Before Calaf’s vision and consciousness fully blacked out from shock, the steel door at the hunters’ backs was violently thrust outward. Calaf collapsed on the ground, twitching.
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