Ken was feeling a bit crabby at Lauri, perhaps because this mightn't have happened if Lauri hadn't told him to quit his guild. It showed in his voice. "Why would you tell him the plan?"
Lauri laughed, "I wouldn't and didn't," then cast Freedom of Movement on himself, just in case.
"So then you wanted them to group up?"
"That one guy was catching up too fast. Have you noticed he's not on our heels anymore?" Lauri next cast See Invisible, just in case.
"You wanted them slowed down then?"
"Exactly. There's a lot of forks so who knows, they might not know the way we're going."
"Shouldn't we go a different route?"
"Not against scouts. If they have tracking skills then all we'd be doing is adding a chance for us to hit a dead end or get turned around." [+1 Luck Potential] "I somehow gained a luck potential by saying that?"
"Yeah. Most people stop at hoping to get lucky but you need to play the chances if you want to make your own luck."
"Huh, that theory would explains some things. Then anything predestined, rather than up to chance, is the realm of destiny?"
"I don't know but how do I unlock my Destiny, if that's the case? How did you unlock yours?"
"By chance I visited a dungeon floor that apparently nobody else had." Ken wasn't as good at running as Lauri and was too puffed to keep talking, so after a pause Lauri continued. "I say chance but it was 0% chance for people level 1 through 3 and 20% for levels 4 and 5. Since I kept on farming those floors, thanks to my Necklace of Greed, it was basically a certainty."
Ken slowed down as they neared the safe zone so Lauri cheered him on, "why are you slowing? We're almost there." Ken sped back up and they entered the safe zone, with Lauri quickly using Drain Level on a crab. Bringing his level to 16, just in case.
"Was it really that importa..."
"You don't know how safe zones work, do you?" One of the rogues chasing down Ken yelled round the snaking tunnel, just before they entered into sight.
He nodded at Ken, "yes it was really that important you not slow down, now down the ramp." Lauri ran down the ramp into the first room and put Sophie down gently. The ankheg had respawned and ran at them but Lauri stowed his kite shield and drew his hammer, ending the bug with one swing.
"Safe zones only help against dungeon monsters, they're fair game for... oh, you're down there?" The rogues spotted Ken and party again from the platform above the ramp.
Lauri spoke softly so his voice didn't carry up to the rogues. "It'll take 3 seconds for me to make us all invisible, don't attack or take any hostile actions once the spell completes. Before then, attack the level 100 crabs to draw them down. They can't see through invisibility. At the least the level 20 one couldn't."
The fear on the faces of Ken, Sophie and Billy was evident but they knew they could run from the crabs back into the safe zone. Also the rogues would soon be on them so they had to do soemthing. Had they thought on the situation further they might have noticed the problem but they instead jumped into action, launching arrow, tiny explosion and throwing stars at the crabs. Billy was glad to have Reload Buddy as his crossbow had three snap points, one for bolts, one for longer bolts and one for arrows This setup usually had the drawback of taking longer to draw back (pun intended) than those for a single type. Not for Billy though, somehow intuitively knowing a little trick to bump it over each point, such that there was no pause during winding. Lauri wasn't seeing the prompts the others were so it was news to him when Sophie announced "they're in an invulnerable state and I don't think they notice us."
"Well shit." Lauri shook his head as he used Drain Level again to reach 21.
The party of rogues arrived at the bottom of the ramp and stopped in front of the threshold into the room. "What's well shit? Us?"
Swapping back to shield and mace, "if I can ask, why a party of only rogues? Doesn't seem balanced."
A little surprised to find Lauri talkative, their leader hesitated then answered. "We're in a guild of mostly rogues and class doesn't denote role. I'm an evasion tank, myself."
"Huh. I'm a tank too. Well met."
"Um, so, hand Ken over or leave without him. Whatever, we only want him. You don't need to know why."
"No. Unless it's to do with the blessings of ownership. Then I might think otherwise."
Their leader raised an eyebrow. "Actually, it's exactly to do with that."
"Ah. Tell me which belongings and there's a good chance I'll abandon him."
Ken shouted out "hey!"
The leader shook his head. "None. It's because he can. Better to be rid of him sooner than later."
"Well shoot. Guess I need to die fighting by his side then." Lauri issued a PvP death duel to their party. There were different types, he selected 'running battle' since it sounded appropriate.
"For real? How well you even know him?" He checked their levels and then accepted.
"Not well enough. Ken, aim for the room past the boss beetle."
Ken started running and Lauri scooped Sophie up again as he started casting Aura of Invisibility. Lauri didn't see what hit Ken but he didn't miss that Ken's SP dropped to 2300/3300. They entered the room with 4 ankhegs and his party was engulfed by flames from an explosion [Lost 1200 SP]. Ken dropped to 1100 SP, Billy to 2100 SP, Sophie was unaffected and the ankhegs got a roasting. "Say Ken, why don't you have a Ring of the Warrior?" As the invisibility aura kicked in, Ken didn't answer and he thought better than to reveal their location. Not that their position wasn't obvious. Crabs started jumping down into the rooms, shutting up a laugh as the rogue leader was mid claiming "invisibility won't help you against... what the heck?"
Their leader dodged multiple incoming claws, true to his role of evasion tank, while all but Slasher didn't respond quickly enough and found themselves snapped up. "AHHH!" Slasher actually managed to slice a crabs claw right off so Lauri took note that Slasher was a real bad-arse. The leader had some sort of provoke ability, as all the crabs turned towards him and even dropped the rogues they'd caught. As Lauri slowed down to watch, Billy also slowed, which confirmed to Lauri that his own party could still see. He could see everyone but considering he had See Invisible active he didn't want to assume. Ken lost invisibility as he got too far away so Lauri quickly ran to catch up. As bugs swarmed towards Ken he vanishing once more and they lost him. Lauri sighed in relief as he hadn't been certain invisibility would return once back inside the aura and regretted that the spells behaviour hadn't been ironed out in advanced. Had it not worked that way then that could have been a major screw up. With the 5 minute cooldown, recasting then and there wasn't an option, "stay within range." Bugs looked in his direction and a couple crabs jumped down near Lauri but as he kept moving the threat didn't persist beyond a couple seconds.
Once past the beetle and into the last room Lauri spotted bracers floating there, with a half-transparent barrier around them. He tried identifying them but a prompt explained [Must defeat boss before any interaction]. "Well, we're safe from the bugs here but we can't claim the prize without killing the boss."
"Are we safe from Almar here?"
"Who's that?"
"He leads the party trying to kill me."
"Oh, we're not safe from him here, no."
"Also what's a Ring of the Warrior and why's it so important as to even ask me while running for our lives?"
Sophie was lowered to her feet as she stated "it's Class restricted to Warrior so that answers that."
Lauri nodded and pretended "ah, so that's why only Billy, Hero and Ted were wearing them? There description were that it makes max HP use 100 times Toughness instead of 10 times Toughness."
"Wait, there's a ring that multiplies Toughness by 10? That's too OP."
"More OP than that. Things that multiply get added together before application. So for 100 HP multipliers of 10, 2 and 2 would make 1,400 HP, a total multiple of 14. The ring first changes base HP so 100 HP becomes 4,000 HP. It's slightly similar to how the critical hit multiplier is outside the brackets of the other multipliers. Like 2a(2a+2a+2a)."
Billy adds, "they drop so often that warriors get them upon joining a guild, even though by law we only need to be supplied a starter weapon. Of course they have durability but, at a Market cost of 10 SP and the high drop rates, you never see a Warrior without one."
Ken thinks for a moment then asks "So if I have 400 HP for level 10 then you have 4,400 for level 11?"
Billy nods. "I have 11,000 actually. Warriors aren't squishy like Rogues, Mages and," looking at Lauri he added "Ritualists."
Lauri laughed. "Speak for other ritualists. I have 5,500 HP."
While not out-there, this was still unexpected by Billy. "How?"
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
"Minotaur Shield gives +1,000 Toughness and I have a Toughness Potential of 50 per level. That's 11 by 50 by 10. But don't worry, if you drank Potions of Potential Toughness, to 30 cap per level, you'd be at 33,000 HP. That said, my chains are for the Ritualist Class so there must be something for increasing my HP."
"What about your chains?"
"Oh, I can use these chains to damage myself and an enemy equally but the health pools of some monsters grow way higher than mine. That level 20 crab back there puts my max HP to shame. So I must be missing something."
"Would make more sense if it were for Blood, Vampirism or Flagellation Ritualist."
"Hmmm. If the gods design these things then maybe it was allowed for all Ritualist so that any of those professions could combo with it? I didn't pick Ritualist so I'm yet to do much research into the common professions."
Billy wanted to ask how he ended up a Ritualist if he hadn't asked to be one during his ceremony but remembered rumours that Goddess Dike talked with someone, and also wasn't generally a chatty person, so left it at that.
Lauri finished reaching level 100 and the rogues hadn't arrived yet. Ken had already sat down and gotten comfortable, as if death wasn't coming for him. Lauri shrugged and lied down, lighting his lamp and trying to continue his translation, but the lamp didn't seem to work while invisible. "We don't need invisibility right now do we?" Nobody said otherwise so Lauri dropped that spell and got to his translation. Some half an hour passed and Lauri was finished his translation of Dungeon Keeper. Now he only needed to work out how to add it into the System. As he closed his book and put things away Ken asked "do you think they're dead?"
"Huh? Duel hasn't ended. Let's prep then find out what happened." He located the editor screen and saw Red-Light must have added a subcategory for book editions. Either that or it always existed. His translation for the alternate edition added, Lauri felt good that at the very least he'd accomplished what Red-Light had first asked for. Not that he planned on dying. Lauri wondered what level the rogues were anyway, since the active PvP didn't list enemy levels. "Is there a way to know what level we're up against?"
"Analysis skills? The challenged get told levels but I don't think the challenger does."
Lauri cast Protection Bubble and checked his status. "A shame," he thought, "every attribute would be at cap if not for the levels forced onto me. At least Charisma is at cap."
{
Class: Ritualist
Professions:
- Level 10 Sealer
- Level 1 Unrestricted
Effective Level: 101, EXP 42,980/60,900
HP: 14,591, SP: 30,300, PP: 10,907/12,480, MP: 360
Strength (Fast-Twitch): (826) 1,036/6,161, Toughness (Slow-Twitch): (459) 1,459/5,050, Memory: 1,423/3,030, Reasoning: 1,451/3,030, Charisma: 3,030, Luck: 101/202, Destiny: 404
Available Attribute Points: 5
Skills: 13
}
Sophie walked over to Lauri and started knocking her head against his until he asked "what's wrong?"
"You just put up a shield of 30k."
"We worked out that, at his current level, Billy could have a HP of 33k. So is my shield so unusual?"
"But I went Shield Maiden. What was the point in having taken a shield specialisation if a non-specialist blows mine out of the water?"
"It's okay. Calm down. It's because I'm totally cheating. Alright?"
"Please don't tell me it would double if you put on the Sexy Leather."
"It would double."
"Take it back!"
Lauri confuses her for meaning to take back what he said. "Okay. I take it back."
Sophie stripped in front of everyone and tossed the Sexy Leather to Lauri. "You can wear it."
"Oh. Um. You can wear my Ankheg Armour instead then. It halves physical damage taken."
Billy let out a single "hah," then feels the need to explain, "your effective HP is the same as mine. Not that I care. If I were a tank like Hero I'd throw a fit. Heck, Hero would probably try and... never mind."
"Take the armour? Over my dead body."
They had to wait out the 5 minute cooldown before Lauri could cast Protection Bubble again. A shield of 60,600 then covered everyone and he then cast Aura of Invisibility. They made it all the way back to the first room, noticing all the crabs except the level 20 one had left, then spotted the group of rogues up in the safe zone. Apparently the invisibility did little against the rogues as one of them jumped up and pointed, then there were some spells cast and they were all looking at Lauri and group. Lauri made is way up the ramp and said "hello, though we'd come back before you started getting rest benefits."
"How kind of you not to keep us waiting longer. Decided to turn Ken over?"
"You already fell for my trap so why would I do that?"
"What? No you're the ones trapped at this dead end."
"There's lots of rooms behind me. How is this a dead end?"
"The anti-raid mechanic might protect you down there but you still need to pass through here to leave. We can starve you out. Besides, we're in a duel so we can all attack without worry."
"Yeah. That's my trap."
"How so?"
"You don't want your public PvP stats damning you, right?"
"Yeah. So thanks."
"Well, neither did I. Now you've been softened up and I don't need to worry about my stats."
Almar started laughing and kept laughing for some minute, not that he let his guard down. "You underestimate how much our difference in level makes. Higher level adventurers can crush people like you like you're nothing. It happens way more than you might think. Last chance to walk away or you can die with Ken right here."
"Die with Ken."
Almar's face suddenly changed from someone who looked like they were having fun to the dark expression of a ruthless killer. He hadn't even taken a full step forward before his whole party were moving with great agility. Not all forward but each with a strategy of their own, such as to flank or interrupt sight. Lauri cast Sleep on them and was surprised when they all doubled over to sleep. As his party also moved to attack Lauri casually said "stop" and, aside from an arrow flying over the rogues now sleeping heads, they stopped. "I can't believe that worked. An attack will wake them so I want to try something." The others were speechless, but this didn't mean victory so they were still on edge. Lauri swapped out to his warhammer and checked that the spiked end was facing forward. Then he struck Almar in his head, as hard as he could. The damage reduced Almar from 61% down to 42%, punching through helmet and skull, then suddenly Almar's HP dropped to 0% [Coup de grâce]. Ken's jaw dropped. "What was that?"
Hardly serious, Lauri said plainly, "I thought these guys seemed like bugs so I'm just testing it out."
While Lauri still didn't know what a 'coup de grâce' was it triggered for all 6 rogues and killed them each with a single hit. "I think I'm getting the idea of how this weapon works."
"How's that?" Ken asked.
"Well, for one thing, it always scores a critical hit against bugs."
"It counts them as bugs? For real?"
"I don't think so. For two of them I didn't get a critical hit, so I think there's just an increased crit chance against helpless targets."
Sophie had to ask, "how did your spell not get resisted by them? They're way higher level."
"They were when they accepted my duel. Now? Who knows."
Sophie shook her head in disbelief. "Whatever your secret is, it sure is something. Did we even need to run?"
"It wouldn't have worked if not for the crabs."
"Wait, then, if the crabs didn't start jumping down then we really would have been screwed?"
"They might have still been susceptible to my Sleep ability and it lasts up to 5 minutes if not interrupted. In that time we'd be half-way out the dungeon. So, who knows. What happened happened and we can only guess at what-if."
"Has anyone told you that you're too laid back?"
"Not that I recall."
"Well, you're too laid back. Couldn't you at least pretend to look scared every now and again?"
"Maybe you didn't see it but I was pretending to look scared when I was baiting Almar into a duel."
"Oh yeah, I'm sure he totally believed it. 'Oh, I'm so scared that I'm challenging you to a fight to the death.' Not!"
Lauri and Sophie chuckled and started to make their way to towards the stairs up. Ken and Billy weren't laughing. In fact, Ken leaned closer to Billy's ear and whispered "I'm half-convinced Sophie is a psychopath but you don't think Lauri is too, do you?" To this remark, Billy checked Lauri's public PvP stats.
{
PvP Statistics
Sapient kill count: 148
Highest kill level: 250
PvP area kills: 0
Good Karma: 8
}
"Hard to say, he has no area kills but at 148 his count is high for how recent our ceremony was. I hear people can get accustomed to killing so this could be normal for him?"
Ken gave that some thought. "Well, I admit there's a difference between betraying someone and killing to protect someone but if he's not psycho then why'd he overlook Sophie's betrayal?"
"Don't know, don't care. I'm only a temporary member, remember. Personally I'm not getting on the bad side of someone who's killed a level 250."
"So you think it's because he needs Sophie in his party for some reason?"
"Not a bad theory but an alternate theory is that he likes Sophie in his party."
"Or maybe she's got him charmed."
"That's what I'm saying. Oh, you mean magically? Yeah, another good theory."
"We need to help him then."
"Not my problem."