“With that terrible event came a silver lining: a new means of better training the Guardians. I believe Isiphelo has inadvertently given us a great tool in his undoing with the creation of the dungeon hearts.”— Reylynn, recorded in the Archivist’s Log
Beyond the village of Firestone, the Territories of Rielle. Day 02.
Saiph had found Eric slowly rocking in his chair in front of his shop when he and his party had made it back to the forge. He was looking up at Diurne overhead. The crescent sliver of its white half was faintly tinted purple from its crystalline half’s faint pulsing glow.
“You bring good news, I hope!” Eric called out.
“Good and bad,” Saiph answered. He relayed the story of their adventure and Eric listened with rapt attention.
“The whole thing’s become a magic dungeon?” Eric asked.
“Yeah, not as strong as some of the ones my guild has faced, but an instanced dungeon nonetheless. Clearing it out might be impossible now. I’m not sure if we can do it. I’ve never heard of an instanced dungeon being destroyed.” Saiph said. “But we’re going to find a way if it means helping those people finally rest.”
“An admirable goal,” Eric said.
“One we don’t really know where to begin. Is there anything more you know about the mine? Or Instanced Dungeons in general?”
“About dungeons, no. Talk to Sylas, adventurers come through from time to time to stay at his inn, he’d know more than I.”
“One more thing, do you know about a woman named Samira?”
Eric sat silently for a moment, then said, “No. Name doesn’t ring a bell. Why do you ask?”
“Because of what happened after we cleared the dungeon,” Rose said, then recounted her meeting with Samira.
“That sounds awful. I wish I could help, but I honestly don’t know anything else I could do,” Eric said. “My forge is always at your service. You look like you could use it.”
Saiph looked down at his beaten armor. “Yeah, unfortunately I think it's too far gone now. But that does lead into some good news…”
Saiph pulled a large sack from his bag of holding. “We did get some firestone for you.”
Eric’s eyes went wide as he looked at the bag. “That’s far more than I could have asked for!”
Cassi bolted to Eric and picked up one of the firestone crystals, holding it up to the older man. “You can use these? What do they do? I have many more pieces!”
Cassi’s words ran together as she frantically pulled more firestone from her own bag of holding. When the pile threatened to spill off the table beside him, Eric threw his hands up.
“Please, miss! Please! That’s enough! We don’t want to blow the whole place up! I’m more than happy to show you my forge whenever you like. Just please keep that much firestone in your bag!”
Cassi nodded and began returning the stones to her bag. She turned to Saiph. “I know you wanted us to go to Orleana with you, but is it alright if we stay here? I need to learn more about this firestone.”
“You don’t have to ask us for permission. You’re your own person. I’m sure the village will be more than happy to give you both rooms of your own in return for the firestone you give them,” Saiph said.
Eric gave an excited nod. “Absolutely! Tell Sylas to give them rooms. He will set them up well.”
“Thank you,” Saiph said. At the sound of yawning from Rose, Saiph pulled the starstruck Cassi away from Eric and put them on the path back to the village.
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Sylas’ tavern had already gone to sleep by the time Saiph and his party returned to the village. A covered plate of bread and fruit and a pitcher of water with several empty cups had been set out on the bar for any patrons who might want to break their fast overnight.
Saiph took a small plate of bread and fruit and sat down at a booth. Slaine sat at a bar in silence while everyone else had gone to bed. Neither he nor Cassi seemed very interested in idle conversation. Saiph just figured they hadn’t had much to say, having only been around for two days. That, and being an introvert himself, Saiph was perfectly fine dining alone.
He studied Riley’s profile. It still showed her as online at their guild castle, Pallas’ Watch. He wondered what was going on over there. More and more he wondered if whoever was on her account ignoring him was a bot like Cassi and Slaine. Or someone who had hacked it and was just trying to avoid him.
Slaine tapped on the table. Sometime while Saiph had been lost in thought, the Berserker had moved from the bar to sit across from Saiph. He had a child-like anxiousness about him, not unlike what Cassi had displayed earlier. Saiph had forgotten that though Slaine bore the looks of a Berserker, tall and muscular with a rugged face, he was still very much a “child” in a way.
Saiph closed his menus. “What’s up, Slaine?”
“You said something earlier about an item that could change my stats. Why would I want to do that?”
“Putting all your points into one stat is largely a waste. You need a well rounded amount of stats to make yourself as effective as possible. Constitution gives you more health to survive more blows. Strength makes you do more damage, but dexterity increases your attack speed, allowing you to hit more often. Being able to deal a big hit doesn’t mean anything if you can’t move fast enough or survive long enough to land it.” Saiph kept his explanation of the stat system as brief as he could for Slaine. He would understand it in time.
Slaine looked at the ground for a long moment. “Constitution gives more health. If I had more health, I would not have been nearly killed by Samira earlier? I could better help Cassi with more health…”
“It was a hard hit, even I felt it. But yes. And if Cassi had more mana, she’d be able to cast more spells to help you. You two would be able to better help each other.”
Berserkers wanted to move to kite their enemies as easily as possible and Casters wanted to slow and inhibit the enemy. Slaine wouldn't need a healer given his high health regeneration and Cassi could focus on letting Slaine deal damage while keeping the pressure off the both of them. Whomever had created their accounts and paired them together had inadvertently given them a boon if they could get the proper build path going.
“I think I understand. I would like it if you could get those items you talked about.”
“I’ll do that. And if you two need anything while we’re gone, you only need to ask.” Saiph punctuated the statement by sending the Berserker a friend request.
The two continued chatting about the basics of the game for a while longer before Slaine went off to bed, taking Saiph’s room.
Saiph went back to his menus, not particularly tired. He sent another message to Riley, then followed up with one to Will.
Will responded with a call. “Sup, Isaac. Anything new going on your way?”
Saiph filled him in on their dungeon escapades.
“An instanced dungeon there? And you found a pair of bots? Quite the day.”
“Yeah, but there was more to it. It’s just a hunch, but I have a feeling we’ve been going after the instanced dungeons all wrong.” The meeting with Samira Lueur Rose had described earlier spooked Saiph more than he’d let her know. He didn’t exactly like the idea that he, his guild, and the many other players across the globe had been unintentionally hurting innocent people by raiding those dungeons. Especially with the way Raine von Alder had explained summoning magic, it felt… wrong.
“No, I get it. We’ll see what we can dig up here. If the people we’re fighting in dungeons were just trapped there by something else, we’ll find a way to free them,” Will said.
“I hope so. Anything new going on your way?”
“As far as I can tell, people are still holding their collective breaths. Word finally made it to us about the big guild meeting in Araedi. LP Seshat, the ones organizing it, invited me and my guild personally to come. Pays to run the largest guild in Annwyn Online. We'll be sending a delegation,” Will said with a smile in his tone. “I’ve also got a group here ready to make a raid party to fight our way to Pallas’ Watch. When you getting here?”
“We should be there by tomorrow night,” Saiph yawned and laid down on his bench. “I do want to come back to the mine after finding out what's going on with Riley’s account, see if we might be able to get something more out of Samira. We’ll have to run a smaller party for that, it caps at six.”
“Sounds like a plan. Say, I see you’ve still got the Dragon Warrior subclass. You haven’t summoned your dragon yet, have you?”
“No, why?”
“Check my new class. Just do it when you have enough space and there isn’t anything burnable around. Good night, Saiph,” And with that cryptic message, Will ended their call.
Saiph looked at his friend’s status page. His class had changed. Before, he’d been a Sword Saint, now he was a Dragon Saber. And his subclass, Dragon Warrior, had been replaced with his old Pirate subclass.
Upon further inspection, nearly everyone in North Remembers had their Dragon Warrior subclasses replaced with another subclass and their main class now held some moniker of the word “Dragon”. Saiph nodded off to sleep, wondering what this new bit of information could mean.