Chapter 57

The Dark Threading dungeon was a short distance from the graveyard arrival point.

A cave mouth, hidden by ancient brooding trees that cast the area in eerie shadows was the entrance.

He heard a rustling sound behind him and turned. An elf with purple hair posed with one hand on her hip and the other holding her grounded long-bow.

“Hey Handsome.” She looked at him coyly, searching.

A smile curved her full lips, “Oh, you leveled up. A lot!.”

“I can say the same about you,” as he inspected her character in turn.

Player Name: Lone Arrow

Level: 55

Class: Hunter

“I have been solo grinding, but it’s boring,” she twirled her hair looking up at him through lowered eyelashes.

Dave swallowed nervously. He knew she was just teasing, not really flirting. They still had to do the dungeon. But damn it.

“So, are we going in or what?” she asked.

“Yeah. But we need to do something first.”

“What kind of something?” she asked in a low, breathy voice.

He swallowed again. Her response sent him past nervous all the way into anxious.

“Ahem. Yeah, we need to find some mobs and practice our Evasion on them. Get comfortable using it in combat.”

“Yeah, you’re right, especially for this dungeon. I watched some videos, those werewolves are fast.”

He was looking around to figure out which way to go for monster practice, so she didn’t see him wince when she said ‘werewolves.’

“I saw some undead on my way here...” she suggested, pointing.

Dave looked at her with a raised eyebrow, then he gestured at his Undead platoon.

“I can’t attack the undead.” he said patiently.

She giggled “Sorry, my bad. I wasn’t thinking. So what are we going to do?”

“Let’s look around for other mobs, there should be something around.”

They walked along the foot of the cliff, away from the dungeon entrance looking for prey. They came to a narrow canyon and decided to enter it.

The narrow canyon led to a large erosion-formed open hollow, an open amphitheater carved into the mountain.

Dave paused in the shadows of the canyon, looking out at the arena floor. Lone Arrow started to say something but he held up a hand to stop her.

He continued examining the open area in front of them and once again his paranoia was rewarded.

Scattered around the arena were dozens of feline shapes, their coloring perfect camouflage in the rocky terrain.

Most of the unusually large cats were sleeping or basking in the sunlight. But Dave also spotted a number of cats in ambush positions, hidden in nooks and atop ledges along the walls.

Dave was pleasantly surprised when he examined the large felines. They weren’t high enough to give him any EXP, but they would be good to practice on for Evasion.

Feral Panther

Level: 30

HP 4500

DN 250

MA 200

Skill [Gnaw] Bleeds the target for 1% of their total health/sec Duration 10 seconds

“These kitties will be good practice. I’ll go first.”

Dave moved out of the passage..

Three of the hidden panthers leaped from their ambush points as soon as his foot touched the rocky arena ground.

The lead panther leaped at Dave claws tearing and fanged jaws wide in anticipation. Dave sidestepped and struck down at the creature’s spine, staggering it.

Dave cast Spectral Bomb at the cat and detonated it immediately. The explosive damage removed two-thirds of the Panther’s HP.

“Are you sure you aren’t a mage?” Lone Arrow asked, seeing the red damage values.

“It’s the new update. Staggering an enemy adds 50% more damage to the next skill or attack.” He dodged another attack.

Dave began dodging the attacks from the two panthers using Evasion, but he didn’t launch any damaging attacks on the cats.

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“It’s kind of fun actually.” It was incongruous, his gravelly draugr voice-of-doom was not meant for any kind of levity.

“You should try it” he said as he continued toying with the poor cats.

“Alright.”

Lone Arrow joined in, and it only took her a few seconds to get the hang of the new Evasion mechanism.

“This is so great! When I kite mobs I have to use skills to avoid their attacks. I can use Evasion now instead of using up my Skills.” She was dodging and counter-attacking the panthers even while she talked.

Dave grunted. Arrow was okay, but she talked a lot.

“Alright, I thought it would be much harder. Time to finish this. ”

Dave began attacking the panthers instead of only Evading and defending. In no time, all three of the creatures were dead.

High-Quality Panther hide X3

Large Feline Claws x16

“Let’s test something else.”

Dave ordered one of his skeletons forward to attack a panther that was lying in ambush.

As the skeleton entered the panther’s aggro range, it pounced. Dave tried to will the bonehead to dodge, but nothing happened. But after a few more exchanges the skeleton attempted an Evasion on its own, trying to sidestep one of the panther’s attacks.

Even though it failed, it did use the Evasion mechanism.

Dave carefully observed the rest of the fight, trying to measure the skeleton’s Evasion success rate, How many times it would evade, and how many times it would fail.

The skeleton didn’t use Evasion much and had little success when it did.

“Hmm. He only used Evasion a few times. I was trying to force him to use it more, but I guess it’s not something I have control over.

“Maybe as they level up they will get better at it and use it more often. Or maybe they just need more practice.

“Once I rank up I will have more undead to command. Maybe I can do something.. probably try and train them, this is an interactive game, after all, they should be able to learn… I hope.”

“You’re going to have more undead under your command?” she cooed. For some reason she seemed impressed...maybe excited?

“Yeah, eventually, if I do things right and don’t get killed.

“Alright, let’s go hit the dungeon. We’ll practice Evasion more on the mobs there.”

“We have company,” he said, turning to look significantly at Long Arrow.

“Hey, why are you looking at me like that? I didn’t tell anyone about us coming here!” she said with a grumble.

“I don’t want other people messing up our dungeon run together. You are so suspicious!” she crossed her arms and pouted.

“ It doesn’t matter. We have to take care of them. If things get too risky I will use End Mission and leave you here.” he said.

“ Wow! That is really harsh!” she huffed.

He looked at her coldly, blankly. He would do more and worse than that to achieve his goals. She’d only lose a little time. He might lose everything.

Strangely, her face got all dreamy looking and her cheeks turned pink as she bit her moistened lips.

He remembered back in the Ice Palace dungeon, she had the same expression when the lich chained her.

Damn. This is one freaky chick!

Dave shook his head. “Alright, let’s just get this started.”

Just as he was about to enter the cave, a dwarf stepped out of the cave. The dwarf radiated haughty arrogance, and Dave could see the contempt in the beady little eyes..

That was just until the dwarf got a clear look at draugr-Dave. The dwarf paled, his eyes rolled up into his head and then he slumped to the ground. Dave stared down at the unconscious dwarf.

He….fainted? What the hell kind of dwarf faints?

He heard a gasping snort.

“Yo’ face is so ugly...” Lone Arrow was laughing so hard she was wheezing, “people faint when they see it…”.

“You should be grateful we don’t have to pay the entrance fee.” said Dave, and entered the cave with his dignity less than intact.

It was pitch black inside. Lone Arrow was about to light a torch but he stopped her, shaking his head.

“It will reveal our location. Look there.” he said, pointing down.

Flickering torch-light.

“Those are the adventurers that went in before us. They will see our torches if we light them. we will just have to follow their torches, stick close to me, and try not to make any noise.”

“But it's so dark!” Lone Arrow whined.

“it’s supposed to be, it is called the Dark Threading dungeon, you know. Of course, it’s no problem for me. I am a creature of the night, I can see just fine in the dark.” he added smugly.

“Well I’m just a plain little day-time elf, and I need light.” she shot back.

“I do have to ask though, Mr. Night-Creature Sir, why were you so worried about me bringing torches if you don’t need light to see, hmmmmm...?”

“Just wait here. I’ll be back.” Dave grumpily avoided her question. But he did take an unlit torch from her before he moved down the stairway from her.

The stairs were stone, on either sides was an enormous chasm that would be the doom to any unlucky adventurer to fall from it.

Dave saw two adventures. One had a short-sword and tower shield and wore Roman legionnaire style armor. The other player had thick leather armor and carried a heavy broadsword.

Dave was too far away to see their class or levels. But their tags had insignia from one of the Devastators’ sub-guilds.

“Man I tell you, it sucks in here. I can’t use my shield ‘cause I have to hold this stupid torch…” the one in Roman-style armor was complaining.

“Come on, stop being a crybaby. It’s not that bad.”

The hair on the back of Dave’s head stood up when he saw what they were fighting. Of course, it would be a werewolf.

Dave had to close his eyes and take deep breaths to compose himself. Seeing one for real… in virtual-reality, was so much worse than anything else; much worse than the movies, the nightmares, even worse than that damn Ralph and his pranks.

“I really, really, friggin’ hate werewolves!”

The two players had no problems dealing with the werewolf. The raging beast-man was finished off with a single decapitating stroke from the broadsword.

Dave clenched his fists and moved closer to inspect the two adventurers.

Player Name: Pain Killer

Level: 115

Class: Tank

Player Name: Monsune

Level: 120

Class: Swordmaster.

This is a level 80 dungeon. These two shouldn’t be here, they are too high level to get any EXP.

He noted that the two were a bit farther from each other than Dave thought was tactically wise.

“Alright, move away from the center, get as close to the edge as you can. The Night Boar will be charging up at us any second. Don’t let it throw you over the edge.” Monsune warned.

“I know, I know. You don’t need to keep telling me.” Pain Killer shuffled closer to the edge, looking down into the bottomless chasm.

Dave read about the Night Boar when he researched the dungeon. It was a mini-boss that roamed up and down the stairs, rushing any and all players with an unstoppable [Charge], trying to send them flying over the edge of the stairs into the abyss.

Dave stroked his beard and grinned evilly. A moment later a glowing red skull floated over the edge into the darkness and then moved along the chasm wall down toward the two guild players.