Waking in the morning, Estaria snuggled FIlnon for a bit and then dropped the rewards from her dungeon into the city treasury, which unlocked some construction feat.
Exceptional wealth - Money is no object, for your coffers overflow and attract contractors from all over. Building times can be halved for double costs
That was good. Money really was no object these days, so she just dropped most of the cash into the buildings currently undergoing construction. And then she opened her inventory, and looked at the item she had gotten from the dungeon. Other than the historical dungeon key. That was something for later. She did convert 300,000 gold into Thrones though.
Elouviana’s Memento Mori - A tiny tooth of Scarlet Rose, chipped in the battle. It possesses the power of the cat girl’s skill, and allows superior feats of arms when used. Selling price 2,000,000 gold.
The price of this item was incredible, but that was to be expected, really. It was a level 130 item from a woman that nearly killed Estaria. But, the idea of learning anything from that cat was better than the money she could get, so Estaria used it instead, and got a new box that was a box to brighten up her day.
Exalted Blade Art - Torrent Of Blood: A style created to have a most dramatic finishing move to better make a fight more enjoyable to watch, this allows the user to achieve victory in a most Khorne-tastic way. When a Monster is at least 50% health, the use of this technique will instantly kill them in a massive flood of blood.
Instantly killing beasts was quite the act. Though what would it cost her to use, was the question. That was something to find out later, though. When she was facing an actual big monster that required her to use it.
“Any plans for today?” Filnon asked, crawling on top of Estaria and lazily kissing her about the place. Estaria carried on doing system stuff while Filnon played. The army she had was growing slowly. Another week and she’d be able to hit Norden properly. She didn’t need to equal the 2600 garrison man for man, just have enough at her back to cover her.
“Ran an S++ dungeon yesterday. Was surprising for it to drop that Plus Plus on me, but I got through it. Historical Dungeon is unlocked now. Might run that, see what it’s all about. If anyone comes, I’ve left some Thrones out. Apocalypse doesn’t stop people charging money for goods” Estaria was a bit irate at the last part, but it was true, the world could come to an absolute end and people would still want money before they did anything.
Estaria spent a few more minutes playing with Filnon before getting up and dressed. One last nod to her wife and she used to key to send her to the Historical Dungeon. It was different to a normal dungeon as she got a screen in front of her before anything was made.
Will History be changed, or flow the same? A Historical Dungeon has objectives rather than a mere clearance plan. The Main Objective is required to win the Dungeon, Optional Objectives will grant rewards. Divulgent Objectives are key points in which History can be changed or safeguarded, but are otherwise the same as Optional Objectives. Completing the objectives will grant rewards at the end of the run. Completing all the Optional Objectives will grant a superior reward.
Pretty complex, but considering what she had to do to get one, she wasn’t all that surprised. Getting into the dungeon proper, she felt the chill in the air. Stood atop a battlement, looking out to a massive Chaos Army, she got her objectives.
Main Objective: Protect Kislev from Chaos
Optional Objective: Prevent the Destruction of the Palace Of Ice
Optional Objective: Protect Aogmuric Shatterbasher
Optional Objective: Slay Horvic the Bondgrinder
Lots of killing to be done. Not that she minded. The three were pointed out to her in the giant army, but there was not a lot of people up on these walls. Some Kislevites, and a large amount of Dwarves stood ready to fend off the enemy. The cacophony was many times greater than the siege of Middenhiem, and she found herself quite taken back by the size and weight of the throng. Front and center were the Norscans, men of little to no armour who would use their overwhelming number to rush through the storm of javelin, axe and bolt, and throw up the ladders on the walls for their greater kin, which were behind them.
Estaria decided to take the first move on that one, and with a snap of her finger, the shriek of rockets came over head, and lit up the night with raging flames as the rockets detonated. Phosphor warheads burning through flesh and bone the same way it burned through the ice and snow. The fires burned on and on, as the phosphor was far different to simple gunpowder and stuck to the corpses of the men, extinguishing as the melted snow quenched it, only to burst back into flame when it was rapidly dried by the heat of nearby fire. Truly, this chemical was a vindictive thing, and Estaria suddenly felt thankful that it wasn’t wide-spread in the world. The Norscans were caught off guard and staggered from the heat of the flame as much as the sudden nature of the artillery, and backed away from the wall of flame. Some tried to kick snow over it, but that proved ultimately futile until a tremendous giant came along and booted a small avalanche, smothering the flames effectively with the sheer mass of ice and snow.
After that shock, the Norscans roared and charged the walls, Estaria used Witch Dance, and summoned her Handgunners to add to the volume of Dwarven Thunderers, and more Norscans were cut down. Not that it did much, as the human tide simply climbed over the fallen bodies and rushed for the walls. Giving her shout to increase the stats of all the men around her, she used her repeater Crossbow to target the Norscans carrying the ladders, hoping to stagger or slow down the advance. Eventually, it became totally useless, as the Giant of Giants took it’s house-sized club and smashed a hole in Kislev’s walls so wide there could be no stopping the tide coming through it. That, was Horvic the Bonegrinder, apparently. Her first target.
Turning on her Divine Mode, she shot a few Bloodbane arrows at it, but the health didn’t drop more than a few fractions. Not that she really expected it to. Leaping from the walls and throwing her flails at the creature, she swung on this and soared upwards, towards the large bloodline on his throat. Giants, while large creatures, shared some human physiology, so it made sense that he would have a bloodline on his throat. The giant slapped itself, trying to splatter Estaria and she climbed up the Giant, but her swift manipulations of her chains and the slow movements of the massive hands prevented him from managing to catch her while she flew. Not, that other creatures had the same issue.
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Some flying bat creature crashed into her as she was climbing his torso, and it’s claws nicked and scraped her while mauling, carrying her away from the giant who was bleeding from nicks so small they looked to be mosquito bites. Fighting a creature in the air with no footing at all was a surprisingly new experience, and she could not manage to get a proper angle on killing it, and so eventually took it out with a Hochland Long Rifle shot, felling the beast ...and her. Flown out from beyond the walls, Estaria managed to hook her chains into the neck of a nearby Chaos Giant and stop her from falling. The first flail ripped out of his neck when she jerked to a stop, but the second, thrown quickly after the first split, gave her enough leverage to stop all falling. From here, she recovered her first flail and swung herself upwards, out of the way of the Giant’s club, launching her first flail towards a large bloodline at the apex of the swing. It hit well, and with a gesture from her hands, the chain ripped the flail off to one side, severing the bloodline and spilling copious GIant Blood onto the ice. It tried to cover it’s wounds, but multiple neck punctures and not a massive slice across the throat caused it to take enough Bleeding damage that it quickly collapsed onto the ground. Estaria landed with a thump, and grinned madly.
Seeing a woman dressed like a bride, land on top of the giant she had just slaughtered was not something the Norscans were prepared for, mentally. And suddenly getting hit by a charge of Greatswordsmen didn’t help either. All of a sudden, they were in a fight for their life as great men and Great Swords cut them down, slashing into the horde arrayed in front of Estaria. Though, she really did need to get back to the walls. Couldn’t just leave them like this, and wait to get surrounded by Norscans. Taking off and leaving her Guardsmen to distract the Norscans, she ran back to the breach, leaping and slaying as opportunity dictated, and finally getting back into Kislev proper. The Bonegrinder was busy grabbing people off the walls and eating them, so Estaria came up behind him and, spinning herself into a frenzy, made a makeshift mimicry of Elouviana’s blades, her Orphaned Child slashing at all in her considerable range, ripping through flesh and muscle of the Bonegrinder’s heel.
A thunderous bellow of pain rocked Kislev as Estaria recovered from the spin and pulled her blades in. Losing the support of the heel’s tendon, the Giant stumbled, and Estaria used all her force and dexterity to leap as high as she could, throwing her blades into his thigh and pulling herself in. Both bladed heels sinking their rather futile six inches into the creature’s flesh. As well strapped as the shoes were, this allowed her to dangle by the blades long enough to tear out of the monster’s flesh. Her bleeding buffs and special targeting of the Bloodlines had done quite the fair amount of damage, both direct and over time. Not really knowing she was going to get a time to use it so soon, but thankful for it, Estaria gathered her flails and pushed herself up to a ‘Standing’ position. The force ripped her heel blades out of the monster’s flesh, but she only needed a second to activate;
Exalted Blade Art- Torrent Of Blood
A solid 80% of her Cool was consumed when the skilled was used, but it certainly lived up to the name, as Estaria was blasted away, high pressure blood drowning her as it all rushed from the tremendous creature. It seemed her perks that prevented her from bleeding didn’t prevent her from drowning in blood. Though that was certainly a macabre thought such that she never thought about it until now. Still, between the blood flowing down the streets and Estaria managing to fight the current, she burst from the blood’s surface and took a deep breath, in time to watch the Giant take out half of Kislev as it fell backwards. That was one objective done. The other two would be simple enough. Protect as dwarf and prevent any other Giants from breaking the big object in the middle of the city.
Getting back up on the walls after the creature fell, the ladders were up and the her Fireloques were using their handguns in a manner they were most famous for. Though Estaria was well positioned here, every man who showed his head lost it, and allowed the archers to get back to archering, here was not the only place she was needed. The breach in the wall and other parts of the wall holding ladders would soon swarm them regardless. Was really not going well, all she could do was hope to hold out long enough for her artillery to retick and launch more rockets to try and rout the norscans.
Fortunately, some ten minutes into the fight, when she was on her second set of summons, a loud battlehorn ripped through the cacophony of the battle.If she had her history was right, this was the moment that Magnus von Bildhofen, later dubbed Emperor Magnus The Pious, arrived with his army. Though, The Empire was great for missing bits out, so she wasn’t that confident that Magnus’ arrival scattered The Chaos Horde immediately. So she stayed where she was, by Aogmuric’s side, protecting him from Chaos as he swung his Az with all the great dwarven might in him. This plan didn’t go very far however, because of a new objective that popped up in her sight.
Divulgent Objective: Dwarven Breakout Attempt
That one caught Estaria off guard. She had only heard of this from oral tradition, and there was no mention of a Dwarven breakout. Were they going to fail and die if she didn’t go over there and help out? Was it already happening or had it already happened? That last one was answered when Aougmuric spoke out to the Dawi.
“The Umgi are here! We should meet up with them and push this Chaos Horde out of Kislev!” his voice carried across the walls, and was met with roars of agreement. Enacting a fighting retreat, the Dwarves gave ground to the Chaos invaders, and Estaria decided to help out by bombarding the bottom of the ladder with her phosphor rockets. The ladders themselves fared little better than the men now bubbling away as their skin melted off, and quickly collapsed, rendering such avenue of ingress inert. This helped the dwarves get off the wall and make it through the city, meeting only token resistance, as the Kislevites and the dwarves were clashing all over the city. Getting to a hidden Postern, they slipped out of the castle and ran straight into a large Chaos Force mobilizing to fight with Magnus. The dwarves would not be able to handle this force, and Estaria had spent her summons on the wall, so they were cooling down for a few more minutes. Not to be dissuaded by sight though, Agomuric and his Dwarves charged into the Chaos line.
Estaria, grinning at the inspiring nature of Dwarven Courage, jumped over the small Dwarves and drop kicked the Aspiring Champion on horseback. Landing in the middle of the enemy force, she used her heels as much as her flails to spill blood across the field in copious amounts. Chests caved in, throats slit, skulls cut in half, and other methods of creating a field of bodies that mounted up by the second. Being pushed from the woman in the middle and the Dwarves slowly encircling them, there was not much hope for the guys, and they slowly reduced in number until there was nobody left. There was a cheer, and then without missing a beat, they moved off to reinforce Magnus’ forces. While Estaria and the Dwarves had caught one group, there were many more coming from around Kislev, and Magnus’ army was surrounded by the buggers when they arrived.
Estaria took out her Talon and started to fire off crossbow bolts to thin the herd, but with only a little Cool left, she had to reload manually. That meant she only got a few shots off before they were in combat and Estaria was spilling blood again. It was strangely comforting, despite the exertion. Magnus saw the Dwarven reinforcements and pushed his men forward with such inspirational words even Estaria felt emboldened. Adding her own buff to Magnus, the men roared with renewed passion and pushed twice as hard into the Chaos Warriors. Though one person would ruin that, and that was a large, rotound thing lumbering towards Magnus, it’s halberd sweeping men aside as it lurched forwards. Nurgle really was disgusting, with what he did to his followers. Estaria sort of didn’t want to go kill him and get that yuck on her blades. But she did anyway. Jumping to the sky and hoping from shoulder to shoulder, her traits letting her not break the shoulder of the man she landed on to get to the Nurgle Champion that was charging towards Magnus and his fated battle with Asavar Kul, the Everchosen.
Her Heel Blades were the first, slicing it’s bloated back up and following up with her Blades. The thing didn’t bleed so much as belch pus and maggots. She snapped a Hotchland rifle to the Champion’s head and followed up with her flails opening his disgustingly obese gut, flipping backwards as it exploded in a shower of bile and large insects. Still, as robust and resilient as Nurglings were, Estaria did a lot of damage, and the bleeding brought it down to its knees, where Estaria took the damn thing’s head off and let Magnus duel in peace. Despite the Dwarves, the Chaos Horde was of a magnitude unrivaled by any that had come before it, and weariness was setting in, attrition growing as the fight went on. But, just as things were turning bad, the nearby hill was covered in Kislevite Lancers and Empire Knight Orders. The relief force sent to Praag had returned, and with horns, drums and screams, they teemed down the hill, smashing into the Chaos Horde and shredding it with lance and axe and hoof. Finally, the cavalry charge broke the morale of the horde, and the Everchosen staggered, between the choice of running or staying. And Magnus took advantage of that hesitation to drive his weapon through the chest of Asavar, ending the reign of the Everchosen. The clean up did not take long at all, and that was the end of it. One final fight, and the world flashed white.
Historical Dungeon complete.
All Optional Objectives complete. Double Experience gains.
Gained The Nemesis Crown.