As we continued deeper into the Barrows, we continued to find small groups of skeletons that we were able to defeat at the cost of the majority of our potion stock. Since even the normal skeletons were pretty difficult for us to defeat with our current strength, we weren’t too upset by this. At least we weren’t right up until we were nearly taken out by the last group that we discovered which had a Skeletal Fire Mage among them we were pretty much ready to turn back.
“That was too close,” I sighed as the final enemy fell to a powerful strike from Warren.
“Yeah, that thing was powerful,” Fern agreed as she glanced around at the rest of us. “We’re running pretty low on potions now, aren’t we?”
“Yeah,” Evie agreed. “Should we turn back?”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Kelly agreed but then noticed the frown on my face. “What is it Zeke?”
“I think that we should press on,” I replied. “We’ve spotted the skeletons that we’ve fought before they noticed us. I want to find a clue as to what’s going on here if we can.”
“But what if they do spot us first this time?” Evie asked.
“At worst all that will happen is a party wipe,” I shrugged. “No matter how real this game is. It’s still a game, we can’t actually die. Besides we’re quite a bit stronger than most of the other outsiders that we’ve met anyway. So, it’s not like we’re going to have any issues with that either.”
“Zeke has a good point,” Kelly nodded. “What do you think Fern?”
“Well, if I stay far enough ahead of the rest of you and use my Stealth Skill then it should be fine,” Fern replied. “Unless I get ambushed by a Skeleton with a Stealth Skill.”
“Alright let’s take a vote then,” Katy said brightly. “I vote we continue.”
I raised my hand immediately as did Warren, Katy and after a moment of hesitation Fern did as well drawing a sigh from the other two.
“Well, I guess we’re continuing on then,” Kelly sighed. “I really hope that nothing goes wrong.”
“Don’t worry about it, babe,” Warren chuckled as Fern activated her Stealth Skill and started creeping down the corridor. “We’ve got this.”
Kelly rolled her eyes at her husband, but I noticed the small smile that crossed her face briefly. It was good to see them enjoying themselves. Back in the real-world Warren and Kelly had been working normal jobs that they weren’t that fond of but felt like they didn’t have much of a choice but to do so due to their financial situation. Which was why I was so happy that they had both decided to join me in Soul Core Online. It would probably be a while before they could make enough money to support themselves purely off playing the game, but I knew that they would eb much happier doing so.
Things seemed pretty normal for the first few minutes after we headed out but then Fern appeared out of thin air with a worried look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked immediately as she collapsed to the ground and started panting like she had just run the entire length of the corridor back to us. “Did you run into a Boss Monster or something?”
“Actually, that’s exactly what happened,” Fern panted making us all take several steps back as we looked down the corridor behind her. “Don’t worry it didn’t spot me. A bit further down this corridor it opens up into a large area which is where I saw it. I don’t think it’s the main Boss of this Dungeon but it’s definitely a Boss.”
“Alright,” I said as we all relaxed slightly. “What else can you tell us about it?”
“Well, it’s a massive skeleton that seems to have been made by fusing a bunch of other skeletons together into something much more powerful,” Fern explained.
“Okay, is there anything else that you saw?” Kelly asked. “Anything that might give us a clue as to what’s actually going on?”
“Not, really,” Fern replied with a vigorous shake of her head. “I got out of there pretty quickly so that I could warn you. Because I’m telling you now; there’s no way that we can beat that thing as we are now.”
“Well then do you think that you could get close again?” I asked. “And maybe bring either me or Kelly with you just in case?”
“I think that you and I could probably get as close as I was,” Fern replied after a few moments. “Sorry Kelly but Zeke’s just better at that sort of thing.”
“That’s fine dear,” Kelly chuckled. “We’ll prepare to retreat just in case something goes wrong.”
“I’ll try not to take the idea that you think that I’m sneaky personally,” I snorted as I clapped Fern on the shoulder making everyone chuckle in amusement. “Lead the way.”
Fern nodded and together we carefully started making our way back down the corridor. Sure enough, after a few minutes the corridor started opening up into a much larger room. The room appeared to have once been a place where either funerals were held, or where the belongings of the deceased was stored and even had a second floor where the Boss monster that Fern had spotted was waiting for us.
Sure enough, it was a massive skeleton that had to be at least 12 feet tall. It was armed with a great sword that was about as tall as I was and seemed to be wearing armour made from bone. I wasn’t sure if the armour was separate or part of the monster itself, but I did know from just looking at the thing that there was no way that we were going to be able to fight it any time soon. And that knowledge was only amplified when I activated my Identify Skill.
“Let’s see Dreadknight Rexarius,” I read quietly before stopping briefly when I saw its Level. “Level 28!?”
“Yeah, like I said; there’s no way that we can beat that thing,” Fern whispered back at me.
“No shit,” I hissed at her. “Why the hell is this thing so much more powerful than the skeletons though?”
“Don’t look at me boss,” Fern replied. “Do you see anything else that looks like it might be important?”
“Not really,” I replied as I looked around the room. “Wait, it looks like there are a bunch of marks on the ground where stuff used to be. Do you think that someone looted the place and that’s why the dead are rising?”
“Could be,” Fern nodded. “Or this could be the servant of whatever, or whoever stole everything, and they left it behind to cover their tracks maybe?”
“Or they could still be deeper within the Barrows,” I nodded in agreement. “Anyway, I think that we’ve learned everything that we can. We should back to the others before something spots us.”
Fern nodded and we started making our way back down the corridor when we suddenly heard the sounds of a fight up ahead and broke into a run. It appeared that some patrolling skeletons had encountered our party. Thankfully, there were only two of them or they might have lost a member but as it was, we returned just in time to help Warren deal the final blow to the first one before pummelling the second into submission.
“Well, I hope that your little scouting mission was successful,” Warren said as we quickly grabbed the loot from the skeletons. “Because I think that it’s time to bail.”
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“Yeah, I think that we’re good,” I nodded and together we started moving back towards the entrance of the Barrows. We decided not to break into a full run now that we knew that there were skeletons patrolling the corridors. Both to keep the noise that we were making as low as possible but also to save our energy in case we needed to fight again.
Thankfully, we only encountered one other patrol on the way back. Unlike the last one this patrol was comprised of three skeletons including one archer, but we still dealt with them easily enough. While it was definitely true that the skeletons were the most dangerous foes that we had fought in Soul Core Online other than other players and the Rabbit Matriarch we were already starting to get used to fighting them. Yes, they were relatively skilled with the weapons that they used and even used Weapon Skills every now and again, but their bodies were actually pretty fragile. All it took was a few blows to a joint to disable a limb and blows to the head seemed to deal quite a lot of damage to them. It might be a different story if we hadn’t specifically picked up new weapons to deal with them but we had so things were going much more smoothly.
However, we managed to make it out of the Barrows without running into any other problems. Once we were outside, we took a bit of a rest while we decided what we were going to do next.
“Well, I think that there’s a pretty good chance that we’ve achieved the main goal of our Quest,’ I said as I brought up my Quests screen to confirm my suspicions.
Sure enough, I was right, and we had succeeded in finding the information that we had been sent to find. We had also completed the secondary objective as well which meant we would be getting that rewards as well which would be quite useful to us.
“So, what exactly did you discover?” Kelly asked.
“Hmm, well it’s definitely something to do with that Boss that Fern discovered,” I replied.
“Well, obviously,” Kelly sighed as she rolled her eyes at me. “But what do you think the information actually is?”
“That’s hard to say,” I replied as I rubbed my chin in thought. “There are a couple of options. We noticed that there seemed to be some things missing in the room that we found that Boss in. So, it could simply be that someone looted the Barrows and that woke something up that’s affecting the Warding Crystal, or it could be that the thing that looted the Barrows is actually the thing that is causing issues.”
“I think that the second option is more likely,” Evie said after a few moments thought.
“Any particular reason?” Kelly asked interestedly.
“Well, this is a game, right?” Evie asked. “So, on theory the Quests that the AIs create should be as interesting as possible which suggests to me that the second option is more likely.”
“That’s actually a really good point Evie,” Katy nodded in agreement. “It would be far easier to make more parts to this Quest if there was something actively pulling the strings behind these events.”
“Well, technically that could still be possible for the other option as well,” I pointed out. “But I think that you’re probably right.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Warren chuckled. “So, are we ready to head back?”
“Oh yay, another long walk,” I sighed making the others chuckle once again. “I don’t suppose that there’s some sort of Fast Travel System that we could be using Katy?”
“There is,” my AI replied with an amused grin. “But it wouldn’t help us in this situation even if you did have access to the Teleport System right now since you can only use it to move instantly between large cities.”
“Well damn,” I sighed. “I suppose that we should work out how to use the Teleport System at some point though.”
“Well, that should be easy enough for you guys,” Katy chuckled. “In fact, I’d say that Harmon or the Captain could sort that out for you if you just asked.”
“Probably,” I nodded while Warren sighed in irritation. “Anyway, shall we get going before Warren just Logs Out on us?”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Evie chuckled. “Let’s do that.”
And so, we started heading back towards town. It took us several hours to get back even though we only encountered a small group of mobs called Starving Wolves that we had fought quite a lot over the past couple of weeks but other than that our journey was pretty uneventful. A few other players greeted us as we approached town. While there were still plenty of players who were jealous of our success others had started asking us for advice on how to actually deal with the Locals. This had improved our popularity in town by a considerable margin. Both with the Locals and with other players.
Once back inside the safety of the walls we made our way to the Guard’s Barracks where we were greeted by Jameson and Harmon.
“Welcome back,” the old man said as we walked through the main entrance. “How did you investigation go?”
“Pretty well,” I replied with a smile. “But I think that we should talk about the details in private.”
“Of course,” Harmon nodded. “Please follow me.”
Harmon turned around and led us to the Captain’s office where the massive man was sitting at his desk poring over a sheathe of documents. He looked up when we entered and gave a tired sigh.
“Looks like I’m just going to get busier today,” he grumbled. “I take it you discovered something?”
“Well, we certainly think so sir,’ I nodded. “Like you warned us the dead that had been buried in the Barrows had risen. But we also discovered one particularly large skeleton that appeared to have been formed out of multiple smaller ones that was called Dreadknight Rexarius. It appeared to be a Level 28 Boss Monster.”
“There was a Dreadknight in the Barrows!?” The Captain roared angrily as a vein started pulsing on his forehead. “Jameson start rounding up the men. Harmon can you contact the Church and let them know that we’ll need their Templars.”
“Wait, aren’t you guys all well over Level 28?” Warren asked as the other two men jumped to action. “Even if this Dreadknight is a Boss aren’t you overreacting a little?”
“Not at all,” the Captain replied. “Or rather it’s not the Dreadknight that we’re worried about. It’s the thing that made it.”
“The thing that made it?” Kelly asked. “Are you saying that monster is being controlled by something even more powerful?”
“I’m saying that thing is being controlled by something that could wipe this town off the map if Harmon and I weren’t here and even we wouldn’t last long against it without help,” the Captain explained once he had calmed down a little. “And that’s just by itself. However, this creature’s true strength is that it can raise the dead in droves and even create things like that Dreadknight that you discovered. In fact, Dreadknights are usually one of the least problematic abominations that thing can create. The one you found was named so that makes it a bit more dangerous than normal Dreadknights are.”
“Uh, so can you tell us what this thing is?” Fern asked nervously. “Because it sounds like a necromancer or maybe a Lich?”
“So, you have heard of these creatures before then,” the Captain sighed. “Yes, this creature was once a human that reached the pinnacle of the Dark Arts known as Necromancy and somehow managed to mostly survive its own death and become a monster known as a Lich. The problem is that these creatures are ancient. As ancient as the skeletons that you found in the Barrows. Which come to think of it is probably why it was there in the first place.”
“Wait, are you telling me that this thing doesn’t need Soul Cores to learn new Skills or magic?” I asked causing everyone else to turn and look at me with surprised looks on their faces that quickly turned to horror as they started to understand what I had already figured out.”
“That’s right,” the Captain nodded. “And it’s apparently been raising undead that also lack our own limitations.”
“And this thing has been trying to bring down the Warding Crystal which means that it’s planning on attacking Polson soon. Would that be correct?” Kelly asked.
“Yes, that would be why I reacted the way that I did,” the Captain nodded. “Now that you have a better idea of what’s going on. I’m sure that you can understand.”
“Oh definitely,” Warren agreed. “Now can you tell us how we can help?”
“Uh, well I’m honestly not sure what you can do,” the Captain replied as he looked at us in confusion. “In fact, when a Lich turns its sight on a town like Polson the town is basically considered lost. So, we were planning on evacuating as many people as we can while we gathered the forces that we needed to take the Lich down which is going to take at least a week and that’s not including the time that it will take for them to actually get here.”
“Well things are different now Captain,” I chuckled. “You seem to be forgetting a couple of things about us Outsiders.”
“And what would those be?”
“The first is that we’re actually coming to this world for the sake of Adventure and we’re willing to do a lot of things that normal people would actively avoid because of the second reason,” I told him. “The second reason of course being that we can come back to life when we get killed.”
The Captain blinked slowly as he processed what I had just told him as grins started working across the faces of my companions. If there was one thing that I knew would breed a massive amount of interest among players, it would be a massive Event like an invasion which was what the Captain seemed to be suggesting was going to happen. Events like this usually made games a lot more interesting and the players who did well in early Events often became some of the most powerful and well-known Players in the game.
“Wait, are you saying that all of the Outsiders in town would be willing to help us?” the Captain practically shouted. “Not just the five of you.”
“Well maybe not all,” Warren chuckled. “And we’d all be expecting to get rewarded for any help that we gave you.”
“If you think that the other Outsiders will help us out then I can start organising rewards right away,” the Captain said as he leaned forwards with a hopeful expression on his face. “But I still don’t really understand why you Outsiders would volunteer to fight a battle that they know that they’re going to lose multiple times.”
“Oh, that’s an easy one,” I chuckled. “It’s because most of us want to be heroes.”