Shin painted the path they’ve travelled on two sets of scrolls, perfectly to scale. Leon took the brush handed to him and did the same on his end, several unexplored areas becoming obvious, most of all a larger circular zone down one the paths in this mosaic hall.
“Go down first then up?” Shin asked, the lower half of the map holding the most unexplored space.
“Sure.”
“How do we know there’s orb rooms left?” Yen spoke up. “There might only be one of each, we’d be better off hunting down parties.”
“No.” Grace spoke up, adamant in her gentle demeanor.
“Hah?” Yen pressed back, with looming disparagement.
“There’s more.” Leon confirmed. “This would be easier if we knew each other’s names.”
“Donny.”
“...Kamala.”
Yen waited to go last and postured herself, conceit finding her face. “Yenny Phoenix.”
The Shaolin scoffed.
“Something to say?” Yen confronted the insult.
“You’re like a child.”
Yen’s expression turned a bit more hostile. “I’m surprised you haven’t been replaced yet. Maybe you do have some talent.”
The woman started to open her mouth but Leon caught her attention from the side, smiling calmly. “...Suyin Hua.”
Mockery found Yen’s face in the opportunity. “The sick man of Murim? We found some of you earlier. They weren’t much.”
Suyin blurred, her viscous palm striking out towards Yen. And a warning of death struck her. She flashed back even faster than before, a few beads of sweat trickling down her face as she turned all her attention to the boy crouching down. His hollow eyes focused back on her, unblinking.
“They were the aggressors. Half of them survived, the Abbess among them, I believe.” Kamala spoke up to relieve the tension with a bit of diplomacy, which seemed to achieve the desired affect, albeit slightly, as Suyin rose to a guarded ease.
Leon glanced at her, no sign of the events affecting him at all, and back to the party. “You know Grace from Shin. And this is Ti.” He rested a hand on the red haired girl’s head.
“Stop looking at me!” Ti shouted at a calmly smiling Shin.
“Can you scout?”
“Of course! Ah…” She caught herself only after answering without thinking. “Don’t ask me questions!”
“You scout ahead to the main areas and I’ll check the other paths.” Shin turned to Leon.
“Sounds good.” Leon looked to Ti who shot a sharp glance at Shin then dashed off, the others following close behind, Grace flying through the air as Yen did.
---
Ti sprinted through the corridors, disappearing for a brief moment as she rounded each corner, the others following behind at a distance. She stopped suddenly and raised her hand. Suyin rushed forward first with quiet steps and burst through a patrol of cultists landing a palm on the warrior’s head. Blood splattered from the orifices of his skull and the warrior slumped to the floor as Leon and Donny appeared behind, carving away the ordinary cultists.
The group continued on without rest as Shin sped down a different path. Small clusters of weeds sprouted behind the group, marking their path. Like this they barrelled through the maze, leaving bodies of cultists in their wake. Shin rejoined behind for a moment in brief spurts before taking off in a different direction again.
Eventually Ti disappeared round the corner and reappeared hiding back along the wall. “Gray.”
Shin rejoined the group finding them at a stop.
“Wind.” Leon informed him.
“We kill the room then snatch the orb before the second wave comes.” Yen suggested their plan.
“The treasure guardian tracks you down wherever you are, even if the orb is in a bag.”
“That didn’t happen for us…”
“It probably ran into another party.” Donny mused, turning to Leon. “Rest of us clear the way and you take it out? Then we can bail.”
“Sure.”
With that, the two parties took off. Leon and Donny each took a side, carving through the masked cultists. Shin and Suyin charged the dragonborn. The first froze and Shin pierced through its eye. The second coated over its with body iron and seven green strikes felled it dead. A dragon born to the side vomited blood as Suyin drew her palm back, taking a few strained steps before falling dead with the other.
The two vanguards needed no help in wiping out their enemies. With everything settled, Shin hopped casually over to the altar and pocketed the glowing gray orb. The group fell back into position as the wall sank down, the rumbling of a stampede within. The swarm of cultists were brushed aside by giant vines and the scaled dragonkind soon appeared.
Donny burst into a dragonborn warrior, crashing it back into one behind and Shin did the same with a tremor. Leon appeared before the guardless Drakotaur with perfect timing, a glowing golden sword held above. Violent wind started to rage off the monstrosity’s body but dispersed away as the sword cleaved it in two.
[Drakotaur Treasure Guardian (epic) - Greater Lord]
Strength - 1183
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Agility - 747
Constitution - 928
Vitality - 945
Dexterity - 756
Perception - 982
Force - 1105
Spirit - 870
Control - 715
Willpower - 766
Skills:
Maim lvl. 10, Wind Mane lvl. 10, Windbolt lvl. 10, Shift lvl. 10, Swift lvl. 10,
Traits:
Treasure Sense (legendary), Wind Amplification (epic), Wind Affinity (epic), Iron Scales (epic), Poison Resistance (epic), Disease Resistance (epic), Curse Resistance (epic),
The casters and thief girl fled the doorway first with the rest following behind. A gate of hardened vines clustered the entrance, buying them enough time to escape beyond the sectioned limits of perception.
“Let me handle dispelling.” Yen told Ti.
“I don’t listen to you.” The tiny thief snapped back.
“Run out of mana if you want, then.”
“I don’t need anybody’s help, I can take care of myself!”
“You had trouble with the troll.” Shin said.
“H-how do you know that?!”
“Didn’t you say it was hit with fire?” Leon calmly reminded her from the side.
“Ah… Oh…” Ti seemed to come to a realization, shooting Shin a tentative glance. “I didn’t ask you to do anything.”
“That’s okay.”
The arcane thief grew a bit embarrassed then sped off ahead to resume her role as a scout.
“I’ll handle the next one.” Yen spoke up.
“Thanks.”
Yen found it a bit awkward to response, the feeling the golden swordsman gave off eerily similar to Shin with a slight difference she couldn’t place a finger on. Tension and distance still lingered between the two parties’ alliance, but it was working, enough that none gave complaint as they carried on through the awkwardness.
---
Yellow lightning scaled off the drakotaur like a mane and the lightning in its mouth vanished as a dense firebolt exploded on it. The monster slammed down its feet, the scales on front blasted off, flesh burned and bleeding, but it remained standing to meet a second that reaped its life.
Donny and Shin knocked back the dragonborn warriors again as the group fled the room, a cluster of roots blockading their enemies once more. The two parties raced throughout the corridors, Shin taking the lead this time, finally stopping at simple corner.
“We should rest.” Suyin suggested.
“I’ll look ahead.” Shin sped off on his own in pursuit of their goals.
“We should be stealing from other parties.” Yen proposed. “We searched through all the gaps now and we’re still short two orbs.”
“They won’t hand it over willingly.” Grace argued.
“They will lie on the ground like good corpses while we loot them.”
“...do you want to kill that badly?”
“Huh?” The disapproving look sent her way got under Yen’s skin. “Two months in and you still don’t understand how to play this game?”
“This isn’t a game.”
“Yes, it is.” An intensely assertive presence found Yen, unlike any side she had shown or pretended to be before. “And some of us want to win.”
Grace did not respond as she saw her words would fall on deaf ears, his face a mix of somber aversion and disappointment.
“Your clan’s power is in the eyes, right?” Donny glanced at the two then broke the tension with a question aimed at Suyin. “Faster vision, see the future.”
“We do not see the future.” Suyin corrected, her attitude cold. “We intuit the movements of things based on their current trajectory.”
“Still quite useful. Man I fought, it was like he knew everything I’d do.”
“Is this your idea of small talk? Discussing how you killed my family.”
“It was a fair fight.”
Shin returned in a blur. “There’s a lot of people over there.”
“Guards?” Donny asked.
“Yeah.”
“Six hour break should be enough. Just gotta make sure they don’t go anywhere.”
“We are not bandits.” Grace asserted.
“We’ll have a chat with them first, see how that goes.”
Shin blurred away again, leaving the group to rest in tense silence.
---
A crowd of 20 odd players ambled at the corner of a corridor in varied states of alert. Alert which quickly turned to fear as eight strangers with higher tier classes appeared in front in a flash. Weapons drawn and spells at the ready, they waited anxiously for the inevitable fight to come but none did.
“Who are you guarding?” Donny asked. No one spoke up leading to him pressing a little harder. “We could just kill you and find out anyway.”
“Minamoto…” An aged man spoke up. “That’s who they said they were.”
“They could be like Bando.”
Donny glanced at Shin then back to the guards. “How many of them?”
“Nine.”
“That’s doable.”
“No it isn’t.” Yen objected.
“They can’t disappear.” Shin persuaded. “That’s Koga. Bando was stronger too.”
“That’s fine then…”
“Alright. What we need you to do is give us your bags and fuck off.” Donny ordered but again they were slow to act. “Do you wanna die here? For them?”
“They took people hostage…” The same man answered. “We can’t, we have to do what they say. Please… just go.”
“We can find a way if we work together-”
Grace’s words were cut off but Shin beheading the man in a flash. Leon impaled another next to him on his sword, calm and indifferent. The rest burst into action around Grace, slaughtering the guards in seconds. Shin flung out a talisman and a hulking paper golem rounded the corner and was torn the shreds in a violent charge. The red skinned woman turned only just in time to see the firebolt blast her to pieces.
Donny and Shin rounded the corner at the same time, meeting eight players with reddened skin and glowing red pupils. All eight burst into action with ferocious power and speed. Two red slashes of aura broke on Donny’s shield and Shin’s gray furred fist. An older man at the back roared as a wave of energy barreled towards them and was siphoned away into the hands of a red haired girl glancing around the wall. The others bounded behind the vanguard, each taking one of the seven charging Minamoto, an erelim taking the helm for Kamala.
A brawl erupted in the wide corridor, the Minamoto possessing strength and skill but lacking in variety. Roots ensnared one long enough for additional vines to contain his outrage and the golden sword of the erelim to slice through his skull. Suyin spun in place, deftly deflecting the attacks of two at once, a palm thrust to their torsos rupturing organs within.
Shin’s tremoring fist stopped short on the shield of bastion but his estoc pierced the woman’s jaw up through her skull. A Minamoto’s bursting shoulder charge stopped short on Donny’s own bastion as he feinted a strike to his enemy’s head, taking a leg instead, a second thrust to the falling man finishing the job.
Vines and erelim ended the life of another as Leon calming weathered the onslaught of his opponent. Greater in stats but still the man could not get pass the golden haired swordsman’s skillful blade. He ducked under a swing of his club and severed an arm in turn. The red eyed man turned unfettered, a second club finding his other hand and swung as Leon parried and took the other arm. His greatsword thrust through the man’s heart, ending his life.
The old man at the back finished condensing a wave in his palm and unleashed it upon all. Ti flickered to the front and released the first wave she had been holding back at him, condensing it stronger. The two waves struggled with Ti’s starting to be pushed back. Mara appeared near the ceiling and hurled a volley of screeches. The old man weathered the first and second but the third finally broke his concentration along with his wave, and Ti’s surged over him, disintegrating the top half of his body.
Shin hopped over to the remains and scavenged through the spatial bag, paying no heed for the surviving hostages they were told about. He took out two orbs, one deep blue the other dark green.
“Water and Acid.” He smiled back.
“Acid?” Yen stressed.
“What?”
“We don’t have resistance for acid.” Yen shot back at Donny. “The dragon’s probably going to have around 1500 Force if things make sense, that’s not something we can deal with without resistance.”
“Just have to dodge then.”
“Acid attacks are slower than the others.” Leon offered.
“You better hope so. You’re the ones on the frontlines.” Yen rose off the ground. “Everyone should be good enough on mana. Let’s head to the boss room before someone else does.”
“Ti.” The thief girl glanced back at Leon’s call, annoyed at being outmatched at plundering by Shin, who teased her slightly. “We’ll get our share.”
Hesitant, but still she ran off, heading down the path back to the great hall like they had talked about. The others followed as Shin remained just a few moments to finish looting. Grace held still, a melancholic frown on her face.
“Keep moving. Always.”
She looked across to the hollow eyed boy with a sickeningly familiar slight smile, disillusioned. Shin sped off and she lingered before flying towards the group.