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World: MSS - Loading...
"Speech"
"Thoughts"
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The mage cast his spells without rest.
｢ ??? has cast [ Lightning Strike ] ｣
｢ ??? has cast [ Sand Tornado ] ｣
｢ ??? has cast [ Lightning Strike ] ｣
｢ ??? has cast [ Lightning Strike ] ｣
With the mages spells exploding all around us, we kept our heads low and ran as fast as our legs could carry us. Deep inside, we all knew that if we were caught, it would mean certain death. On the positive side, we were too far for anyone other than the mage from their party to reach us. That gave us some time to put a distance between us since traditionally, mages were the slowest moving member in every party. I felt my heart jump every time a lightning strike crashed near me, the crackling sound of thunder catching up after my eyes had already seen it. Smoke rampaged all around us, rising slowly from the singed sands. The whole place was turning into a wasteland of smoke and lightning.
"If even one of these hits us, we're dead."
Lety basically carrying Clover under one arm while dodging left to right. Puca ran ahead of us and we were matching his speed despite his orc heritage. I had expected Lety to keep up with Puca but she wasn't the only one. I, for one, was surprised at my body’s endurance in this chase, we’d been running for almost an hour now. My legs were burning and no matter how deep of a breath I took, it wasn’t enough. But I hadn’t collapsed in exhaustion yet and had managed to stay in line with the others.
“Just a little more!” My thoughts mirrored the panic that my body felt, coming all jumbled.
“H,How much longer.” Clover managed between gasping breaths, still recovering.
Puca didn’t answer, opting instead to scream. “UWAAAH!”
He sped up and I knew that must mean we were at the last stretch. His legs became a blur as he started sprinting faster than before and this time, we started lagging behind. The distance between us began to grow wider but the lightning strikes had begun to die down.
"Has he run out of Mana?"
“”A-Ahead!” Clover shouted and I looked to see where she pointed to see a sign of a monster that might be heading out way.
“Fuck, this is the last thing we need.” Any time we spent on dispatching this monster could put us in danger.
The creature hadn’t revealed itself yet, it was moving below the sand. Its movements were marked by the clear trail of sand being blasted towards the air as it began to surface. There were simply too many monsters who behaved this way for me to identify it yet.
“Sand Shark? Desert Mole? Gecko Soldier? More Agwi?” I readied by shield, just as the sand exploded and it revealed itself.
[ Death Worm (олгой-хорхой) ] - Grade 9
The creature was only about three to four feet long, hardly befitting of the gargantuan Agwi we had been fighting moments ago. It was bright red mixed with patches of brown scales, and where there was supposed to be a mouth there was a round hole with serrated teeth like a lamprey. It jumped up on the sand and started crawling towards us.
My response was immediate.
“EVERYONE STOP!”
To my surprise everyone stopped running.
Except Puca.
Puca kept running and tried to cast a spell on the Death Worm but he was too slow. The Death Worm curled in on itself and pounced towards the vibrations it sensed, and coiled itself around Puca, its mouth biting down on Puca’s neck.
“W,WHAT IS- AHH! SLAVES! HELP!” He dropped his staff and tried to tear the Death Worm off.
I saw Lety start to move at my side and immediately stopped her with a hand.
“Dont.” I warned with a look, trying to convey the gravity of the situation with my eyes.
Lety slowly blinked and obeyed.
Clover stared wide-eyed at the monster.
“To think the Death Worm would appear here… fuck. I should have known this. If it came even a few minutes late, it might have been able to slow down our pursuers.”
“Mmpth! Mmpth!” The Death Worm’s body was wrapped around Puca’s mouth now.
All of a sudden, Puca’s body went rigid and arched, then collapsed on the ground. The Death Worm’s body began pulsing, slowly drinking all the blood out of Puca’s body.
“Holy Shit. That was close.” The Death Worms are grade-9 monsters that live in deserts. They weren’t too dangerous… unless you were below level 10. These creatures carried a venom that had an [Instant Death] mechanic for all characters that haven't reached level 10 yet. Or in gamer terms: insta-kill.
The creature could spit the venom but most of the time, people died because they chose to touch the monster. The monster’s whole body was covered in the poison. So that meant you could only attack it from afar. At our pace though, we had been on a collision course with the creature. I wasn’t aware of what level we were, but I knew for sure that we weren’t 10 yet.
“Slowly.” I mouthed to Lety and Clover and began to inch across the sand, past the feeding Death Worm.
｢ ??? has cast [ Lightning Strike ] ｣
“???”
I felt my hairs rise on end like I had seen in my physics class for a static electricity demonstration end. It took me a second to realize what would happen.
“DUC-”
When I opened my eyes, the world had been split in two and were spinning in opposite directions. I tried to get a sense of whether I was sitting down, lying down or even standing up but hit the sand with my chin instead. Rolling to the side, I yelled out for L’teya and Clover but only heard the constant sharp piercing sound.
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“Shit. Get yourself together.” I felt myself drool stupidly, but didn’t care. I had to get to my feet before our pursuers or the Death Worm noticed us.
“-orn, look!”
As my hearing came back, so did my balance. I caught the last parts of what L’teya was telling me bu saw that she was pointing at something. I groaned and tried to see what she was pointing at.
A perfectly round sphere made of red energy was floating in the air, right above Puca’s burnt corpse. The orb was being revolved by speckles of sand-colored energy.
A Spirit Core.
“Did the lightning strike kill the Death Worm?”
But now wasn’t the time to wonder what had happened. I knew that our pursuers were closer than ever, we needed to run.
It didn’t take me long to decide what needed to be done for us to survive.
“Lety! Take it!”
I don’t know what came over me ever since we started being chased, but I had started giving out orders. I think it’s because deep inside, I knew I was the best person to make the decision. Even in the tunnels when I was working with L’teya and Clover, I had been to one to come up with the plan to get us out. All those nights of playing MSS, creating forum posts outlining best places to hunt and best ways to raise your character was giving me a surge of confidence even while everything was flesh and blood.
I was pretty confident in navigating the game using knowledge alone.
I think deep inside, L’teya and Clover must have sensed my confidence too, else why would L’teya point out the Core to me? She had been deferring to me to make the decision.
L’teya’s hearing must have recovered faster than mine because she leaped across the sand and touched the Spirit Core. As soon as the tip of her finger touched it, it dissipated into dozens of scarlet-colored sand streams which went straight into L’teya’s chest. I saw her scream into the sky, exhilaration and fury on her face. She drew her battle axes.
By that time, I had walked over to Clover who had recovered.
“Run!” I yelled to them, realizing that my hearing was back.
Lety gave me a confused look. “But I just-”
“Just fucking run damn it! They have a mage!” I had never spoken this way to L’teya nor would I have dared to in any other situation, but we couldn’t afford to lose more time.
Lety growled in frustration and stowed her battle axes, running over to me and helping Clover her. This time she hefted Clover entirely. While she did so, I checked Puca’s body seeing if there was anything of use. I took his staff, dimension ring and the map which had parts of it singed off. Luckily, the location of the dungeon and where we were was still intact.
“Damn these guys are so fucking poor they can’t even afford potions.” Potions were expensive but I thought that the orcs would have some on their person, if not all of them at least their Witch Doctors.
I broke out into a run with L’teya on my heels just as another [Lightning Strike] struck Puca’s body.
｢ ??? has cast [ Sand Tornado ] ｣
｢ ??? has cast [ Lightning Strike ] ｣
The winds around us began to pick up and the sand rose with it. The miniature tornado formed before we could run out of it and battered at our skin, bits of sand leaving cuts on our bare skin.
“Behind me!” I muttered to L’teya and put my shield in front of my body, crouching to cover mostly my chest and head.
Making sure L’teya and Clover were behind me, I walked into the barrier of sand using the shield as a battering ram.
At first the barrier resisted then slowly, I sunk into the barrier, getting cuts all over. But the hard part was done.
“Now!” I yelled out and stepped through in one stride, trying to spend as little time in the barrier as possible.
My shield took the brunt of it, softening up our path so we could get through without too serious of an injury. We didn’t stop however, and continued running.
｢ ??? has cast [ Lightning Strike ] ｣
｢ ??? has cast [ Lightning Strike ] ｣
“Does this guy not run out of mana?” Keeping my eyes peeled was no easy task as the mage continued to use his spells endlessly.
“There! To the left!”
L’teya was the first one to find what I had pointed to on the map beforehand. It was a small grove of palm trees and a pond in the middle.
“Into the pond!” I yelled and tried to speed up, but my legs refused to listen.
“FOR HONOR!” L’teya sped up, faster than before and picked me up in the opposite hand holding onto Clover.
Holding Clover by her waist and me by my collar, L’teya sprinted full speed and before I knew it we passed by the first of the palm trees.
“After them!” I heard a voice shout from behind us and I knew it was our pursuers.
But L’teya’s [Physical] Stat must have been boosted greatly by the Core, we were already at the pond and L’teya jumped in while holding both of us.
The pond was cool and refreshing, the complete opposite to the agonizing heat that had perpetuated throughout my stay in the Samak Desert. I felt my skin soak up the water and if I wasn’t being chased, I wanted to stay here for hours just drinking my fill and bathing myself. The water was deeper than it looked from the outside, extending downwards for dozens of feet. Quickly spotting our destination, I made eye contact with Lety and Clover to make sure they’d be following and swam straight towards the underwater cavern.
The cavern was actually an entry way and we came up above water on the other side, an underground alcove. We dragged ourselves to dry land, determined not to waste time. The ground wasn’t the bumpy jagged feeling of rock, but smooth polished marble. The platform made of marble led deeper in until it met the cavern walls, housing a double door embedded in the walls.
“Do we enter the gate?” Lety asked.
I stared at the double door confused because I had never seen it before.
“This wasn’t in the game… no. Don’t panic. There’s definitely something here.” I ran to the door and began studying it.
The door was made of bluish-white stone and there was writing carved into the stone. I touched the words hoping to elicit some kind of response but couldn’t find anything.
“Shit.” I tried slamming the door hard with my shield.
Nothing. “Did I just get us killed?”
“I know these words.” Clover offered. “I recognize them.”
I backed away from the door immediately, giving her room to study it. “Do you know what it says?”
“It’s an ancient form of Beast Tongue… they used to teach it at the temple.” Clover frowned. “This one here says… push… and this one here says, traveler… I think there’s a method to open it.”
Shhng.
“Then you had best hurry up. We have a visitor.” I heard Lety’s battleaxes make a ringing sound, she must have drawn them from the leather loops on her belt.
I swallowed, wishing I had taken a long drink from the water.
"No matter what, get that door open." I told Clover and walked to join Lety next to her.
From the water rose a single figure.
He was black-haired human and very tall, almost as tall as some of the orcs. The first thing I noticed about him were his clothes, which he was wringing the water out of with his hands. He was wearing a skin tight leather armor that stretched from his neck to his ankles. Over the armor he wore a loose sand-colored cloak that had sleeves for him to put his arms through. Everything about him screamed ‘desert dweller’ to me, except his skin tone which was deathly pale. While wringing out the water out of his cloak, he looked at us with one eye.
“Scaredy-cats, the lot of them. They thought this was a trap y’know. Told’em it wasn’t. As usual, I’m right.” He drawled.
“Not nervous at all. Probably a high leveled adventurer. No reinforcements, they’ll wait outside.” I began to take note of all the information available to me.
I saw Lety rocking on her heels, debating whether to dash towards him or not.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, pretty elf lady.” He finished wringing out his cloak and put one hand on his waist, where what looked like a dagger was still sheathed.
“I’m way stronger than you.” The man stared straight ahead at Lety.
Then his eyes wandered towards Clover, who had her back to him.
“And you, stop whatever you’re doing, beastlady.”
“I need to keep him occupied.”
“Tell us who you are.” I hadn’t drawn my sword yet but held my shield at the ready.
He smiled, and I saw blackened rotten teeth. “Let’s just say we have a vested interest in making sure these orcs don’t get any stronger.”
“Then are you guys freeing the slaves?” Could it be that some other faction were trying to free the slaves from the Samak Horde?
“You can say that.” His eyes wandered over Lety and Clover, and I saw the man lick his lips.
I recognized the look.
Whatever he was, he wasn’t here to help us.
I drew my sword and the man raised an eyebrow. “You sure you want to play it like that, young’un?”
Putting my shield in front of me, I stepped towards his right side. Assuming he was a righty as most people were, he would most likely wield the dagger with his right hand. I wanted to give L’teya the greatest amount of opening as possible, since with her Core and battle skills she’d have a much better chance than I did of finishing this guy off.
“Quick. Before they think he’s down here for too long.” I muttered, not caring if he heard us or not.
Lety didn’t answer, just growling.
“Look, I hate to get my hands dirty. You have no idea who you’re messing with. You’ve been slaves for less than what? 6 months? A year? This is probably your first hunt.” He drew his dagger, narrowing his eyes at me. “Trust me young’un. I’m not so rusty as to be killed by three Coreless.”
“He doesn’t know that Lety managed to absorb a Core thanks to their mage.”
Lety and I needed to either kill him or distract him long enough for Clover to open the door and hopefully get it shut behind us. The worst case scenario was if he took too long and his ‘scaredy-cat’ friends decided entering this alcove was worth the risk. I continued to encircle him, but it wasn’t easy. He had his back towards the water and could dive in to grab reinforcements at any second. We needed an opening.
“You know there are two ways to piss someone off.” I started.
The man’s attention snapped to me, his face an ugly snarl. “If this is a bad joke-”
“The first is to leave something unsaid.” I interrupted him before he could finish his threat.
He sneered, his curiosity getting the best of him. “and the second?”
"The second is-" I attacked without finishing.
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