Chariot waited in full gear as the counter slowly ticked down, some to varying degrees of vigilance and excitement but none held any fear. The countdown reached zero and their surroundings shifted to a bleak leafless forest, gray and covered in fog drifting over the ground. What little sunlight the day granted them was mostly suppressed by dark clouds. The cackling of a haggard old woman with inhuman features broke their attention as mana swirled around her, and Ashley beheaded it in a blur.
Shin harvested the epic tier greater monarch Hag’s soul and glanced around with prismatic eyes before leading the party onwards. It didn’t take long for them to arrive at the edge of the forest, a small town laid in the distance. Wood and stone, much like the villages of their new world Pangea they were somewhat familiar with, and fairly well guarded, but Yen groaned in disappointment for a different matter.
“What?” Donny bothered to inquire.
“We have medieval at home. I wanted something new…”
“That is hardly our main concern.” Kamala brought the conversation to a more productive path than the mage’s personal gripes. “We should use this town to see how the people react to new faces.”
“System called us invaders, not really open to interpretation.” Donny said.
“That is my point. How guarded and competent they are as a whole affects our options.” She replied to the knight.
“Then…” Dante veiled and silenced the party. “No time to waste.”
The party snuck into the town carefully through the vigilant, albeit unremarkable players lining the walls. They paused in an alley for only a moment to check for any response before heading into what seemed to be the main street. The ground fully lined with cobblestone and the houses of wattle and daub mostly, but the windows were made of segmented glass and lamps hung from every building and corner of the street, unlit at the moment.
The residents were numerous, and more importantly human of various complexions, donning gear of different styles no doubt originating from the system, such that their party of ten drew no special attention to themselves. Rugged, jaded, or honed expressions were the norm, the majority of people no strangers to fighting or danger, clearly, but their ranks and class tiers were of little concern.
Shin walked through the crowd to a building with a wooden sign of a quill and scroll, managed by a middle aged woman. “Epic tier guidebooks and materials.”
“None of that here, I’m afraid. You’ll have to head to the capital to get better.” She eyed them a little. “Long day?”
Shin tilted his head and put a bag of gold coins on the counter. “Everything rare.” The storekeeper's face twitch just slightly and the windows of her counter slammed shut, a ward erecting over.
“We failed something.” Donny casually glanced at the fortified shop. “The money?”
“The greeting, most likely.” Kamala reasoned.
Distressed yells and hostile clamor interrupted them before they could discuss further as a commotion grew in the distance. A party of draconians badly beaten, some to the point of unconsciousness, were bound and thrown into a pile in the center of the town square. Ten players surrounded them donning a uniform mix of leather and metal or leather and cloth depending on their class, with a less organized rabble standing behind in subordination.
“Behold, monsters from the heathen worlds!”
“We are not monsters!” A draconian woman yelled back. “What is wrong with you people?!”
“The Change tests us all! But as servants of Sol, we must not stray from the light!” The eyes of the man who spoke were callous and radical. “Heresy must be purged!”
“Stop-!” But the draconian’s words fell on deaf ears as the ten raised their hands and an inferno turned the otherworlders to ash and char with baleful screams.
Cheers erupted as the screams died out, unsettling in their blind support but one of the uniformed cast a spell and with urgency pointed at the party.
“Vampire!”
The residents around Chariot lept and scrabbled away as the armed mob charged into firebolts that decimate their ranks. The gruff leader burst out of the flames, burned and wounded, his eyes swirling in fervid hatred, and Shin severed him in half. Chariot burst into action, killing and breaking the mob until fear surpassed whatever drove them and they began to rout.
“Don’t let them escape.”
Mara appeared as soon as Kamala told Shin, and with the bulk of her mana, erected a ward around the entirety of the small town. Shin, Ashley and Basem blurred away through the ward, slaying any that managed to get through. In short time they returned so the party could regroup.
“Not the best start.” Donny swatted a falling body away. “Time to leave?”
“We need information first.” Kamala looked to Dante, Ashley happily twirling her scythe in the street of corpses.
“No problem.”
---
A thin man slammed against the side of a building, terrified as he scrambled closer against it. “Don’t… Don’t kill me, please!” A heavy foot into his stomach brought him spluttered to the floor.
Donny lifted him up by his hair and threw him him upright again. “Answer my questions. We can tell if you lie, if you do I’ll kill you. You understand?”
“Yes! Yes, I understand!”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“What’s the name of this kingdom?”
“S-solarian Theocracy… it’s… it’s not a kingdom…”
“What are the other countries?”
“There’s no others… We’re the only ones left…”
“Who runs this theocracy?”
“The church.”
“The ones in red uniforms part of that?”
“Yes, paladins. Soldiers of the church.”
“What about the ones in blue?”
“Militia. Conscripts from the people. There’s too many e… enemies for the paladins alone…”
“How many are there? Paladins.”
“I-I don’t know. Thousands!”
“Why’re you burning outsiders?”
“...the church said y.. The otherworlders… are monsters, and heathens come to kill us. Destroy the faith.”
“Church tells you everything, yeah? They make all the rules?”
“Y-yes.”
“How did we get found out? You know, as… heathens?”
“At least one person in a squad has a spell, Detect Evil-”
“I ain’t asking about that. Someone running a store figured us out immediately.” The man hesitated so Donny snapped his arm.
The man clutched his arm, crumpled in pain. “The, the greeting! The greeting! Ahhh… say… not long enough, when someone asks you ‘long day’.”
“Anything else?”
“The money!” The man spoke through tears. “Change money is forbidden. Heresyyy, ah hah ahh… The church mints new coins.”
“Vampires a big problem around here?”
“Yes, yes… creatures of the night… embodiments of evil, the… greatest enemy…”
“No children here?” Shin spoke up.
“Too dangerous… They go to the capital. Protected by the church.”
Donny glanced at Dante. “All true.” The charlatan confirmed.
“Alright, then.” Donny rose from a crouch. “That’s three, all from different backgrounds. Probably good information.”
“Okay, so the head of the church is clearly the big bad.” Yen spoke up. “Let’s just go take him out, no point wasting time.”
“It’s too soon…” Jean objected in his passive way.
“If we wait too long, someone else is going to get there first.”
“Unlikely.” Kamala interjected this time. “If the church is the sole authority, they likely monopolize the rankers. Even if they do not compare to ours, it is too dangerous to fight them all at once.”
“I wanna fight~” Karla said.
“Same~”
“I need a guidebook.” Shin reminded.
“Would be nice to get an upgrade in the crafts.” Donny reasoned, by far the most sane minded of the advocates for an aggressive approach.
“Stealing is less dangerous.” Jean suggested.
“...we should at least inspect this capital first.” Kamala glanced at the town. “It would be best to remove the problems here, so our faces aren’t made known.”
The blade of a scythe gouged into the quiet captive’s stomach as foul mana pervaded his body. Anguished groans gave way to ominous silence as his skin turned gray and withered and ghoulish bearing took the face of the new rare tier draugr. The monster ran off on its own with rabid intentions and Ashley darted away, excited to make use of her latest skill.
---
Chariot walked through the doors of an inn of the new town they snuck into, drawing more than a few eyes, unscrupulous and otherwise. Attention they ignored outright as they made their way straight to the innkeeper, a well kempt middle aged man.
“A room. Just one.” Donny spoke, curtly.
The innkeeper glanced at the ten of them, all epic tier greater lords. “2 silver a night, per person. Long day?”
“Not long enough…” Yen half scoffed, as if the events of an unfortunate day reflected on her grim expression. Donny silently put 18 coins on the counter, each with the face of the sun, and the innkeeper collected them without issue.
“Third room on the left. There’s been a vampire sighting out east.”
“We’ll keep that in mind.” The party headed upstairs right away and entered their designated room.
“Seems like it went well.” Yen dropped her act as soon as the door closed without incident.
“We’ll see…” Donny’s focus turned to a man from the tavern area that just left the inn as soon as they went upstairs, something half of the party did within the scope of Third Eye.
Basem cast Vantage Point and tracked the man from a perch of vision in the sky. “Talking to someone. A paladin. The paladin’s coming here.” The man in question walked close to the inn and cast a spell, and immediately headed off elsewhere.
“...what’s he doing now?” Donny asked.
“Waiting. Alone.”
“An invitation?” The knight suggested. “Might be worth seeing what he has to say.”
Jean headed out first, using his skills to detect for traps and magic and in a moment the party appeared before the man. Lean, sharp faced and a bit pale, though otherwise unremarkable. He showed no sign of nervousness even outnumbered, but instead stood with a presence that beget superiority.
“This is my territory. Leave.”
“We will leave when we are ready.” Kamala spoke dispassionately but her words incited the man just as she intended.
“This is the issue with you newer progeny…” A foreboding presence took the man as figure seemed to become more threatening. “No one teaches you the rules.”
Ashley beheaded the man in an instant, and he burst into mist, reforming quickly at a distance, his shocked face gaining vampiric features as he hissed loudly. Dozens of ordinary epic tier vampires of various ranks encircled the party at the command of the legendary tier greater monarch Vampire Noble.
“Kill them!”
The vampires lunged, and were torn apart. Those fortunate enough to avoid an instant death due to their undead nature were quickly dispatched as the party discovered individually that destroying their heads was enough. All trace of pride and confidence fell from the noble’s face truly this time, and he fled only for blades of sacred fire to severed his legs. The vampire noble writhed on the ground in pain as the lingering holy light of the skill burning his legs.
“Let’s go.” Dante veiled them at the sound of others approaching from the commotion. “Everyone at the inn was here.”
Shin snatched up the squirming vampire noble and whisk him away as the party fled over the walls, there being no need to silence this town. In no time, they left the view and clamour of the settlement in the distance, and Shin threw the vampire to the ground, still writhing from the holy affliction.
Venom found an opening in the vampire’s pain. “You fools… You are defying his majesty… You. You…” The vampire’s words and thoughts slowed to a crawl as he properly laid eyes on Shin.
The nonchalantly smiling boy tilted his head in thought. “This is... his world? What’s his name?” A casual simple question invoked tremendous fear in the vampire.
“Do you mean the dhampyr patriarch?” Kamala questioned Shin.
“Yeah.”
“The literal second place?” Apprehension found Yen’s face. “The fuck, this is the worst world…”
Shin stabbed his holy blade into the vampire’s side in the blink of an eye, eliciting shrieks of pure agony. “Name?”
“I cannot-” The secret vampire howled again as Shin twisted his weapon, the anguish such that the creature spoke on reflex. “Virgil-”
No sooner had he uttered the name, his body exploded, the entirety of his soul consumed to deliver a blast of immense force. The dusk subsided, revealing an unharmed party behind a mystic shield, barely cracked. Shin unmoved from his casual crouch, having made no effort to protect himself as he knew there wasn’t need.
“Seems like this is a little more complicated than we thought.” Donny spoke, mostly directing it at Yen in the form of a light jab.
“Shutup. If that monster hasn’t taken over the world, then I’m still right. Obvious red herring.”
“Our success passing as residents might not be valid…” Jean mused.
“We will have to try again.” The priestess reconciled. “As for the capital…”
“Still our main target.” Yen enforced bluntly, the priestess giving her a look of stoic disagreement but expending no effort to truly oppose it.
“Let’s go.” Shin rose to a stand and with two quaint words, led the party towards the danger.
---
A silvery blond haired man sat on a grand throne, even the elegance of his courtroom paling in comparison to his noble attire. His passionless eyes opened just slightly in response to something, an act that did not escape the notice of the beautiful white haired woman with striking red eyes standing next to him.
“Has something happened?”
Virgil mused for a moment before closing his eyes once more. “It is nothing. Tell the others they are not to leave the castle.”
Blair waited for a moment but knew nothing further on the matter would come. “Then, shall we keep to the plan?”
“Yes… Let them all walk through a field of spears.”