The Sprinter looked up to the top of the mountain. This began their quest, the five of them had taken quite a while to prepare for this, everything they needed was in their inventories.
They headed through the gate and up the path. Boulders started rolling down and there was no cover anywhere. Most of them had shields and activated them immediately. It would save them from the impact, but not the knock over, sending them flying into the molten lava moat that encircled the mountain.
She lead, being a Sprinter, gaining ground before any boulders even reached the path. Spreading out behind her, they had room to maneuver and dodge properly.
One teammate had already been hit and flew down into the lava. The prompt that came affirmed their fears. The lava moat kills.
They carried on. It was like this for a good ten minutes, even with her speed, rounding corners and running on the straightaways.
Finally some cover, and the entrance into the mountain.
The four of them regrouped and got ready for the next part. There wasn’t any map, no instructions, just get to the top and grab the loot. Kill any enemies… all the usual stuff, and no guides.
They walked through the first corridor and rounded a few corners with no monsters at all. Until the first cavern.
A Lava Rock Giant stood in the middle of the cavern, maundering around. The only exit was past him. A locked gate with the key around the monster’s neck.
The four of them weren’t too worried. But formations were taken and all the training and preparations put to use.
Buffs cast, Mana Shields activated.
Formations.
On the count of three they let loose ice arrows and bullets, the Mage cast a freeze bomb spell.
The rock monster felt it. Health dropped to 50% and now frozen.
They jumped into battle, attacking the monster with their ice swords, heavy hits and good ice damage to the creatures that feel it the most.
The Giant broke from its frozen state, now extremely pissed and attacked instantly. He spun like a top, fast and wobbly, smoldering rocks flying everywhere. It spun around and around hitting everyone, knocking them all back.
Once he stopped, he roared. The room shook and the stalagmites fell from the ceiling, lava started to pour from some of the holes like pillars of instant death, but then puddles grew and soon they would be trudging through lava, undoubtedly taking massive damage, Buff or not.
But that didn’t happen. The mage cast another spell, freezing the Lava Rock Giant and the crew took advantage to take another hit.
The monster was done. Lava pooled at their feet, with more coming, pouring down from the ceiling.
One guy heroically grabbed the key from the Giant, slashed chain fastened to its neck, and jumped over to unlock the door, the rest followed.
This tunnel had bats, and slimes. Fiery, of course. A couple hits told them that these slimes weren’t babies, as their Health started to go down. It was only a distraction.
They continued, more tunnels, more lava monsters and another teammate down.
Three players left.
They came to a lake of lava.
There was flat ground on their side, and a flow of lava from the top of the cliff face on the other. There was nothing else, no more doors, no more path.
They took the time too recuperate and fill up with potions.
A little recon and they found the only way was up, though the lava lake, of course.
They ventured on, approaching the lake.
Tentacles of smoking rock snaked out threateningly.
More Buffs, and more enchantments.
Their ice swords were the best option, but only after the Mage had managed to cast a freezing spell, otherwise, and in the meantime tentacles of molten rock whipped far wide, hardly anywhere was safe.
The work was slow and arduous, hardly any of the frozen tentacles could even be targeted easily. One teammate had already taken his chances and got taken, by chance, by a tentacle. He was scooped up, flailed about and taken down into the lava.
The other two were on edge since then, but working as well as any well oiled machine. Freeze, ice arrows, more freeze, more arrows, sword if only possible.
It was even harder work, and another five potions gone, they had slain the tentacles, only to find a monster come out and slither on land. A raging Lava Python, leaving trails of lava everywhere and even burrowing in the solid rock, only to pop up way to close.
It was a bitch. A massive pain in the ass. HP dropped dangerously low, multiple times.
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More Buffs cast, more uncommon skills used and the Python was finally slain.
The Mage and the Sprinter, the two left to finish their quest. It was a five star quest, and one that felt like it.
As soon as the Python was dead, the waterfall of lava stopped, the lake drained and they were left with the clue to their way out.
The rocks on the cliff formed a climbable wall. It was a designer’s faint attempt at making a ladder in rock, and making it nearly impossible at that.
The Mage went first.
A good five minutes climb, the view of the cave was incredible, and they were half way up.
Sunlight beamed down and they knew they might be getting closer. Impossibly closer.
The rest of the way, their anticipation grew. But it was only the false hope that sunlight gives.
The Mage had crested the cliff. A Python attacked and the Mage went plummeting down. The Sprinter ducked, holding on to the thin ledged ladder on the face of the rock.
This girl was smart, brave to the edge of stupidity sometimes, but smart. She pulled out her sword and got ready to hit. Pulling herself up, she slashed out before the Python could attack again.
It’s head flew off and followed the mage.
She pulled herself over the edge and received a prompt.
You are the last one on your team to survive this quest.
You can head back and regroup, keeping all of your XP and loot. Or you can continue with a bonus:
Status: Lone Bravery
+20% damage given
-10% damage taken
+50% XP to the end of this quest
+2 Luck
She couldn’t go back and say that she was the only one who survived. They’d say she killed them all.
She accepted the bonus status and continued the quest solo.
A golden glow surrounded her for a moment before she headed off around the mountain.
The pass was loaded with more Pythons, Lizards and everything else that spawned in this mountain.
She played it cautiously, never taking a dangerous step. Falling back to lure the beast into her ground. One-on-one at all times, never allow an ambush.
She took hours and had gotten around to the other side of the mountain.
Another rock ladder.
She climbed.
Up on the summit of the mountain, a bridge of rope and wood crossed to the center. An island of rock, just higher than her and hiding the last step of her Quest: Cleanse the Summit of Mount Redrock.
She put a hand on the rope, and a foot on the wood, slowly she made her way across.
Twenty minutes later, lava was flowing underneath her. Far, far below. Crossing the rickety wooden bridge was the next step of the mission.
Her teammates had all gotten lost or killed. She was the only one left to finish the quest, and finish it she will. The Lava Demons and monsters weren’t easy, especially after one member gone, then another, and another.
This was the last step in the quest.
She heard an eagle screech and looked up. It wasn’t an eagle. It was a Phoenix that had caused most of the rumbling and molten balls of lava to rain down that would have taken at least one teammate. But she was the only one.
She cursed at it and carried on, gripping and carefully stepping her way across this bridge.
It wasn’t easy. There were maybe ten wooden slats for the next quarter mile. Her stamina would have been depleted if it wasn’t for the huge number of potions she had brought along and looted from passed teammates.
Half an hour later she had made it across. She barely had time to rest before another fireball came down, which dodged slowly, but made it off with a little burn. The Health she had now was all, no Health potions left.
The rumbling continued and ominous music played. Great, a boss fight, and all by herself.
She made it across the lip of the cater to find a nightmare.
It was a Lava Jinn, level 50. And surrounding it were numerous volcanic Lizard spawn, Lava Rock Giants and Lava Pythons.
She cursed some more and cast her Buffs. She bottomed out her Mana, but this might be worth it.
One of the Buffs she had gotten specifically for this quest: Ice Skin (tier 3), -50% damage from Fire attacks. This came with the skill Ice Hands (tier 4), an attack which did major damage to Fire creatures, as long as you could touch them, and a measly +5% ice damage on weapons.
She came prepared for this battle, enchanted ice sword, enchanted ice armor, ice arrows galore and lots of potions, which she was running extremely low on.
Now, it was battle time!
She took a step forward… courage was too low, and maybe a bit of logic went along with that. She wasn’t a goddess.
She analyzed the area once more.
It would be chaos. As soon as she would attack, a hundred monsters would be hurling themselves toward her, plus whatever that Jinn has up it’s sleeves.
Her courage simply pushed her forward. Her logic kept her planted.
She went through her inventory for good measure, finding anything that might be worth this fight. It all was, every last piece. It was “use it or lose it” now, before getting defaulted and loosing it forever.
She managed to find a multi-shot bow kept with its last few points of durability, a few left over ice bombs she had forgotten about. There were a few water attack items too, maybe coming in handy to extinguish a fire.
The only tactics coming to mind were “straight to the heart”, kill the Jinn; or “bleed them out”, kill every monster.
She figured it might be a better operation being done surgically and heading straight to the Jinn. After that she only hoped the other monsters would either die or disappear. If they didn’t, she’d be in a long and questionable fight for her life.
She opened all three Tomes she had and came out with something good.
The Tome of War and Peace has awarded you with:
500 XP
+1 Charisma
+1 Strength
+1 Luck
The Tome of The Deepest Depth has awarded you with:
500 XP
One time use spell, summons a large portal which either pulls a Demon from the depths, or sucks in enemies to the Depths.
The Tome of Uglification has awarded you with:
150 XP
Spell: Uglification
That put things into a new perspective.
The only options now might be to summon a Demon or send the Jinn to a deeper hell. But how to get to him.
She had another buff and a skill that might able to get her there.
Already being a Sprinter as her Innate Ability, she could run and only had activate Stealth.
So now… she ran.
The monsters barely noticed her, only until she got halfway to the Jinn did she have to throw an ice bomb. She made herself a path with the other two bombs and kept running.
She activated that special one time Tome spell and only hoped it would do what she needed.
A massive rent in space opened up and darkness spewed out for a second before being inhaled back through the portal, taking the Jinn and a few other beasts.
She waited for something to happen.
The Phoenix screeched and came down by her side. She spoke, “Thank you for saving my soul. That Jinn had a hold on my soul. It corrupted me, that’s what caused all this upheaval. My soul is free and you are safe in this mountain.”
The Phoenix rose up and flapped its wings. The beasts were blasted away. The Phoenix spun midair, and a portal appeared. But this wasn’t any normal portal. It was a small, sparkling gold door and lined with rubies.
She stepped through and was finally awarded with:
You have completed the Quest: Cleanse the Summit of Mount Redrock. You have been awarded with: 5000 XP and the Skill set: Phoenix.
The portal let her out into a small room, gold lay in piles, a suit of armor stood on a mannequin, weapons and shields were up for her grabs, treasure chests lined the walls…