The only problem that the group really posed was the hobgoblins, and not for their great strength or skill, but for the fact that their commander designation allowed them to…well…command the surrounding beasts. The goblins were faster, hit harder, and took a little longer to put down thanks to the influence of the commanders, making the second half of clearing the camp take even longer than the stealth section they had just done. Beth didn't get frustrated, upset, or even tired, cutting through the enemies like a machine of death, slowly whittling the numbers down. Blood was there as well, the wolf fast enough to stay out of harm's way while having enough STR to slowly rip enemies apart.
Beth wasn't sure if there were any special challenges with the stages, like clear times to get some kind of reward, but she didn't think they'd gotten anything here. It had taken quite a while to get the last fifty kills and, while she was a little tired, she was more energized by the power of her newly upgraded skill. Even for a higher tiered skill, it seemed to upgrade quite quickly, likely because she ran the boosted version of it super often during combat. It had already bumped up to copper[3] just from the ninety kills she had gotten since acquiring the upgrade. As Blood finished off the last of the goblins, Beth noting that they each had leveled once in the process, the world seemed to shift before she found them standing in front of the massive array once again. All the injuries and dirt and blood were gone, her being a little tired the only indication that they had even done anything since talking to the person at the counter.
Beth looked around, finding no one was really paying attention to her other than the Warder who was motioning her to move away from the array. She and Blood immediately heeded his urgings, moving off to the side to not block any access to the array, though with its size and scope, she was a little dubious that them standing close was doing anything. She led Blood over to the counter to once again speak to the same woman manning it.
"Hey, question again," Beth said.
"Yes?"
"We have all the time we didn't use in clearing the stage to rest, right?" Beth asked.
"Indeed," the woman replied. "With the few hours you took in clearing stage one…and may I say well done, by the way? You now have a little over a day and a half before you would have to start burning your seven days of bonus rest time."
"OK, thanks. I think we're gonna go eat and then get right into stage two," Beth replied with a nod.
"Not a problem. The early stages are rather tame and the two of you should have no problem with the first five or even ten of those stages," the woman said with a reciprocal nod of her own.
Beth led Blood out of the array room and to the right, heading down where the restaurants and bars were located. She decided to try the first restaurant of the bunch, leading the way into the Golden Disk, where the staff quickly seated them. They didn't seem to have any trouble with Blood's presence, making an open spot at the table where the wolf could sit to eat and drink. Beth ordered several dishes off the menu for each of them, focusing on loading up on meat and vegetables before ordering herself some juice and Blood some water.
The two didn't have to wait long at all for the food to arrive, and Beth couldn't help tearing through it once it was on the table. It wasn't just her hunger from the effort she had just put into the first stage, but the fact that the food was delicious. Some type of steak in a butter sauce accompanied by vegetables in a white sauce followed cuts of a roast with something that resembled mashed potatoes. Beth and Blood both ate at least three large servings before they were satisfied, Beth profusely thanking the staff before they left. She did have just enough social graces to wait until they were walking back down the hallway before letting out the massive belch she had been holding.
The two returned immediately to the array room, the time in the restaurant waiting and eating enough to get rid of the small bit of fatigue they had been feeling. She walked over to the counter again to speak to the woman about starting the second stage. The woman did inform her quickly that starting it burned any remaining time, meaning somebody couldn't clear the first five stages rapidly and then have eight or nine days of rest time. Beth wasn't bothered, thanking the woman for the information before asking for the match to again be private and being directed to the Warder.
The Warder made them wait a little longer this time, the two beings handling the array seemingly in the midst of making some kind of adjustments. It all went well over Beth's head, and she just patiently waited while scratching Blood's head. She noted that those that had been idling at the back and observing the public stage clears had shifted, with only two people standing in the back and watching the screens, neither of whom had been there previously. Beth shrugged as the Warder gave her the command, quickly stepping forward into the stage two portal alongside Blood.
They appeared in what looked like the entryway of a classic medieval keep, the massive double doors behind them barred and locked. A long hallway of grey and black stone led forward, lit interminably with flickering torches; nothing of a magical nature, just fire. Beth signaled Blood to follow and started forward down the long hall, making sure to stay alert as they made their way deeper into the keep. The hall eventually opened into something like a large receiving room, with several sets of doors on the opposite wall leading out into what looked like a massive courtyard. Within the room itself was a scattering of enemies, what looked to Beth at first glance like a group of classical knights, stereotypical burnished steel armor and visored helms gleaming in the flickering light of the torches.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
A second glance told a different story, however, as Beth's vastly improved sight could see there were no faces, or heads for that matter, behind any of the visors. Her thermal vision also told its own tale, with the knights not emitting nearly enough heat. The gaps in the armors and the helmets should have been producing a decent amount of off-heat, depending on the species wearing them, and even the armor itself should have been warm, considering the local clime was rather moderate. Instead, the armor was quite cool, with no visible heat being emitted from the gaps or joints. A long-ranged use of her eyes to identify the enemies was the final nail in the proverbial coffin, showing her what she had suspected.
Level 57 Wandering Armor Shade
Beth wasn't sure that the Shade appellation was quite necessary, the wandering armor listing already telling her they were basically empty suits. Maybe the Shade in the designation indicated that they were some specific type of undead or being that had certain defined characteristics, but it didn't really matter much to her. They were a bunch of hard-armored targets, and Beth had the perfect, smashing response to such. It looked like Blood would be of a slightly limited help in this instance, but the wolf's skills were not entirely useless, particularly her ability to bite with unbelievable force. If Beth knee-capped some of the suits of armor, Blood could go around crushing their dumb heads in her jaws and get a nice number of kills herself.
Beth relayed this simple plan to Blood before they entered the room, the first of the living armors focusing on them. The enemy drew its sword and raised it high and, though no sound was produced, it somehow signaled the other armors in the room before charging. The other seven armors all spun to face the entrance before drawing their own weapons and following along. Beth just snickered at the wave of metal, perhaps a little bit overconfident, but she felt sure in her skills and strength, even against higher level enemies.
She met the first knight head-on, easily dodging the horizontal swing of its medium length blade. She twisted on her left foot, lashing out with her right as the knight recovered. She infused her foot and ankle with mana as she kicked, smashing a powerful Crush into the knight's left knee. The blow wasn't so spectacular that it blew the enemy's leg off, but the armor covering the knee was severely dented and crimped just from the single kick. Beth grinned wildly as she saw the results of her first strike, laughing as the knight attempted a second swing at her and nearly fell due to the disruption of its joint.
Beth activated Swift at the maximum of copper and blurred around the room, activating Beastly Body every time she was in front of a knight before slamming a kick into an armored leg. It didn't take her very long before she had partially or fully crippled every Shade in the room. She restarted the full cycle, smashing apart the leg of the first knight she had fought, bringing it down before moving onto the next. Blood wasn't able to fully capitalize on the enemy's weakness just yet, but she was able to attack sword arms once the beings were down.
It only took a handful of minutes for the two to clear out the room, the handful of enemies not able to pose much of a challenge to Beth. Her powerful martial abilities coupled with a rather high STR stat for her level led to her being a prime counter to heavily armored enemies. Even better was the two getting another level for their efforts, likely having been close after clearing out the entire goblin camp and only getting one level from that.
Beth left her sword sheathed as she quickly distributed her points, Blood by now able to see to her own points. Beth wasn't sure if it was all the points she had sunk in INT and WIS for the wolf or something else, but Blood's sapience and overall intelligence was quite clear to see, so it certainly didn't surprise her. She stuck her head out one of the doors of the entryway, scanning around the courtyard to see several of the haunted armors patrolling about. There were a few outbuildings scattered around, looking like a barracks, stable, and armory. At the rear of the large open area was a squat, blocky keep of at least five stories, not counting any basement levels it might contain.
Beth counted a little over two dozen of the haunted armors patrolling around the yard, smiling as she thought of the relatively free experience for both of them. She looked over at Blood and gestured at the enemies, the wolf simply nodding in response. Beth immediately set to work, charging into the yard with a combination of Swift and Beastly Body. The armors stood no chance, staggering or falling as a cackling Beth shattered shins, knees, and hip joints.
Despite the great racket they were making, nothing emerged from any of the outbuildings or the keep to investigate what was happening in the yard. Beth finished her work rather quickly before moving on to actually pulverizing the armors, the act of fully putting one out of commission taking a bit more time than just slowing its movements. Blood managed to take one of the last still standing knights out, dodging a quick swing of a blade before shoulder-checking the armor, the wolf's massive weight and near one hundred STR allowing her to pick the armor up and crush it against the castle wall.
It took only a little more than half-an-hour for the two to kill the twenty-six armored phantoms in the yard, gaining another level from the last kill despite the relative ease of the battles. They hadn't seen any special variants or elites yet, let alone the boss, but Beth assumed they would prove far more troublesome than the fairly easily disabled opponents. It also really helped that she almost perfectly countered the enemies and, even though they were rather fast, the speed she and Blood could operate at consistently outclassed the enemies.
Beth moved over to check the stable first, swinging one of the large doors open with one arm while keeping alert for anything attacking. There were two knights in the middle of the stable who turned to the doors as they opened, drawing their swords while Beth finished swinging the door to the side. She immediately charged the knights, looking around as she did so to identify any other threats. She saw that there were sets of empty horse armor standing in some of the stalls, rolling her eyes a little at the theming of the dungeon staying so consistent.
Beth quickly engaged with the two knights, easily dodging their fast but predictable swings, delivering several rapid punches backed with the power of Crush to each of their arms, gumming up their movements with the crimping of their armor. She moved to a series of rapid kicks to the hips and knees right after, knocking both the armors off their feet before Blood joined her in crushing the helms of the downed knights. Crushing in what would be their heads if they were alive still seemed to function as it ought, killing the Shades when enough damage to that area had been done.
Beth looked at one of the "horses," finding it to be the same as the knights, just…in horse shape. She opened one of the stalls, the horse immediately charging out at her while making no noise, Beth sliding to the side to let it pass. She found the horse a bit of a tougher challenge, the four legs letting it last longer while the brute force of it just charging or rearing to kick made it a little more dangerous opponent than the knights. More dangerous, but not very dangerous overall, as Beth and Blood were still able to fairly easily crush the haunted armor into scrap metal, it just taking a minute longer than the knights.
They went through the stalls one-by-one, clearing out all the haunted horse armors before they returned to the yard. Beth had a quick look around the stable and hadn't found or seen anything out of the ordinary, assuming that there weren't any hidden treasures she could find, especially with the stages being essentially simulations. They moved across the yard to the building Beth had thought was a barracks, opening the door to find two of the knights in the first room.