Golden and the rest of his team found themselves on the backs of catacomb smashers, which were a unique breed of war horses that belonged only in the world of Allyssa. It was an interesting experience as, despite his hero theme being that of a noble and rich king, he couldn't actually remember ever riding an actual horse before, so even if it was with his mind in another body, it was nice to know what it was like to ride a horse.

The four of them were being led to the specific cave entrance they needed to go to by one of the many guides that had been waiting for them at the stables. Their guide was a quiet sort and hadn't even given his name; he'd merely asked for where they were going, and once he'd gotten that, he started on the path that would take them where they wanted to go. He'd not made any noise besides the occasional grunt to get their attention as he directed them to a sudden turn they were going to make or something else of that nature.

So Golden took in their surroundings as they were still in Detrei's territory, or at least the people that worshipped her anyway. As he could make out a thriving plant life everywhere he looked, which was pretty far, as the fort their journey started at was surrounded by flat plains, allowing for a clear line of sight for a fair distance.

The only thing to obstruct this view was the Dragfly Mountains, which were interesting to see. As even from a distance you could make out giant dragonfly heads sticking out of the side of the mountain, somehow glaring at the area around them. Which was rather hard to do, Golden figured, with large bug rock eyes, but the statue heads somehow managed it.

Golden took his eyes off the scenery as he came to a realization he probably should have come to earlier, and that was what did his teammates call themselves in the game. So figuring it was a good time to know, he looked to George and asked. "Hi George, what did you and the other two call yourselves in Alyssa?" Golden asked rather bluntly to George, who looked at him shocked for a moment before answering.

"Well, I decided to go by Asher on account of my second name, sir, and we'll the others." George said before turning towards his two companions, who had been riding just behind Golden and Asher, as such could hear them well. The two men looked at each other for a moment, and for whatever reason, Nicolas was picked to go first of the two in telling their game names.

"I went with Distil, sir." Nicolas said a bit hesitantly in the back of his horse, his dirty blond hair catching the breeze and his brown eyes twitching in worry, but Golden didn't respond to Distil; he merely looked at the last member of the group, Roger, and waved at him to come out with it.

"I went with Purf, sir." The now-named purf said with a rather nervous tone of voice his giving of his new gamer name, rounding out the named gamers. Golden merely glanced at the three of them for a moment, making the three nervous for a long moment before nodding once and focusing back on the mountain the guide was leading them to.

"Rather interestingly named, but they work as far as they can tell." Golden said in a plain voice, shocking the other three members of the group, who all looked to each other for a moment in shock before focusing forward, figuring they better focus forward and not on whatever mind games the golden king was playing with them.

For a long moment there was silence among the group as they enjoyed the scenery and kept to the company of their own thoughts. The silence was broken when the guide soundly grunted, getting the attention of the group, and began to speak. "Get ready; there's a fight coming our way." He stated simply, not saying what was coming or how he knew that.

The others, trusting their guide's experience, pulled their shields and maces from where they had been strapped to their backs and then got into a close group around their guide. Though rather than their riding skills being the reason for them being able to pull into such a tight formation, it was more their war horses, the catacomb smashers' intelligence showing as they seemed to easily figure out what their riders intended.

So the four heroes held their shields up in front of themselves, waiting for whatever their guide was warning them about, but they didn't see or hear anything for a long moment. Golden was about to ask their guide what exactly they were preparing for, as he couldn't sense any threat, nor from what he could tell, any of his teammates.

That's when he heard a strange stabbing noise as a group of creatures charged their way towards the group on insect legs. "Good ears." Golden stated complimenting their guide's great hearing before whatever was charging at them out in the distance closed in on them. The guide merely nodded his acceptance of the compliment, seemingly more bothered at the sudden stop of their journey than whatever creature was heading towards them with the probable intention of ripping them apart.

The creatures off in the distance got closer rather quickly, showing their speed, and as they closed the distance between themselves and his group, Golden had a rather sudden but important thought. They'd never fought on horseback before, and they hadn't trained to do so either, which might be a problem, but considering how rapidly the enemy was closing in, they couldn't exactly get off their war horses either.

So his other three teammates came to the same realization he had about how prepared they were to fight on horseback. That was when their enemies finally closed in only a few meters away from not slowing their charge at all. This gave Golden and his group only a few moments to look at their status screens so they knew exactly what they were dealing with.

Ancentauri - tier two- dark insect- calvary zombie- Trait: eternal roamers - so long as these zombies remain on the move they are in boosted state if they are ever stopped or slowed down they will enter a weakened state- description- a creature with a the lower half of a giant ant and with a humanoid torso coming out of the middle of the lower body back. The upper body has six arms, and two eyes giant insects eyes that are utterly black which are hard to make out as it's shells is also black just if a different shade.

"Well, it looks like we have found the first trial on our quest." Golden stated simply as he looked upon what looked to be a small raiding group of about twelve, which meant three for each of them, as he wasn't taking their guide into consideration as he was a non-combatant as far as he was aware. This was going to be as fun as taking on what seemed to be a dozen eternally charging insectoids while on horseback was always a great idea for rookie horseback riders.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Golden didn't have much more time to think about their circumstances as he found himself having to defend himself from a three-pronged attack. As each of the Ancentauri had a blade of bone in each of their hands, which meant he and the rest of his team had to block a barrage of bone blades. As one Ancentauri came at him from the left, swinging all six blades at him, he brought his shield up to block them.

Golden succeeded in blocking the six swings as they needed to be fast due to the Ancentauri's own ability that had them keep moving. But even with the strikes being quick, the booster status of the Ancentauri caused his quick slashes to pack a punch. Though he couldn't let his shield arm settle as the second stage occurred and a second Ancentauri came at him from the right, the golden one found himself having to block a second barrage of six blades, managing, but now his shield arm was shaking like a tuning fork.

He had no time, though, to try and steady his arm as the third Ancentauri came at him from his right, having no other choice but to bring his shield arm to block another six slashes. He managed but barely, with his shield arm shaking so badly from all the repeated, fast, heavy slashes that his arm was about to let his shield go just because he was having trouble keeping his hand holding it.

Golden took a breath and looked to his teammates and saw they were still holding on but had done just as well as he had. Which he supposed was the point to use a series of fast attacks that destroyed you on the first go-around or wore you down till it did. As if to illustrate his point, they could see the group of twelve Ancentauri coming back around for another pass.

Golden thought hard for a moment, knowing they needed to do something as they probably survived another pass like the previous one, at least not without losing someone. So he thought about the situation for a moment, trying to think of anything they could do to change the situation before they found themselves under another blade onslaught.

That's when it hit him: they can't stop, and the group just so happens to have maces that are far above their weight class. " Aim for the ground!" Golden shouted out to the others as he brought his mace to hear getting released to strike the ground when the moment was right. His compatriots looked at him for a moment as if he had lost his mind, then they realized what his plan was and prepared to carry it out.

So just as the Ancentauri were closing in for another round of attacks, Golden and the rest of his team struck the ground with their giant onion-head maces, causing huge craters to form and dirt to go everywhere. The Ancentauri seeing the craters tried to stop but couldn't in time for most of them, causing eight of the twelve to fall in and leaving the other twelve stopped in front of Golden and his team.

Now being stopped, the Ancentauri had not only lost their boost but had become weaker. So Golden and his team leaped at them, hoping to take them down quickly before going after their downed comrades. This did not work, as even weakened, the Ancentauri proved themselves to be the skilled superiors to Golden and his team, holding them off long enough for the now wounded Ancentauri to get out of the crater and make their way off the field.

Once their wounded comrades were safely off the field, the four Ancentauri warriors broke off their battles and followed after them. Golden and his team did not follow after them; instead, they got their breath back and looked over their wounds, which they had gained from the brief battle.

"Well, now that nonsense is over, we can continue on our way." Their guide suddenly said, surprising the others, as he began to head off to their destination heedless of whether Golden and his team were following him. Golden and the others looked at each other, sighed, and then began to have their catacomb smashers go after his.

"Well, Robert, it looks like Hargal is matching Detrei with his own interesting stuff. As these Ancentauri are making quite the name for themselves around the Dragfly mountains." Simon said a note of interest in his voice as Robert continued to be focused on his system that will keep track of things in Allyssa for the competitive players.

Robert looked over for a moment before focusing back on his work. "Yes, Gargal is doing a good job with his crafting as usual." Robert said he found himself filled with pride at Hargal's crafting ability to turn undead into something more than just shuffling corpses.

"Yes, in fact, I've been seeing arguments among our fans who are mad scientists and necromancers about how ants should be used. As they've been so inspired by Hargal's work, they're arguing about how ants should be best used." Simon said, clearly excited, as all that fan engagement was always a good thing as far as a host was considered.

This new information made Robert a bit concerned about the new ant horrors that might be unleashed in other worlds across all of reality due to his creation of Allyssa. But he put it out of his mind as the genie was already out of the bottle, so it was best to focus on his work.

"That's great to hear, Simon. Though if you don't mind, I'm going to focus back on my work." Robert said in a polite voice to Simon as he went back to trying to work out how to calculate and score all the competitive aspects of an entire world.

"Sure thing, Robert. I'll let you get back to work and tell you if anything else interesting is going on." Simon said in an eager voice as he turned back towards the TV walls in Roberts's workshops to continue watching the wonderful and exciting world of Allyssa.