CHAPTER XXVII: QUEST COMPLETE
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{23:53 LOCAL TIME 28TH MAY 1ME}
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DUNGEON CORE ROOM
THRALL ALDO
Aldo watched in horror as Lisette screamed in pain as she was fried by overlapping fire from the flames of the remaining Greek fire cannons. The only good news was that most of the cannons were not in range of her so she wasn’t completely overwhelmed. But she was perfectly whelmed with the fire she had, however. The rest were systematical wiping out the rest of the lesser and feral ghouls.
“Hurry you fools save her!” He yelled at the Greater ghouls who were still not moving nearly fast enough for his liking. ”Greater ghoul two try to draw some of the cannon fire from your master.”
The damn thing shook its head. “No, you didn’t,” Aldo said incredulously. It actually disobeyed an order. Aldo wanted to choke it. Even though it wouldn’t do anything but satisfy his need to hurt something. He sighed and tried calming himself, he had to focus. “Greater three cover Greater one as he recovers your maker. Greater two override order twelve! You will take out the Greek fire cannons on your side of the fort.”
The Ghouls started to move towards the northeast firing positions of the fort. Aldo relaxed a little. ‘Lisette will survive barely, as long as they can take out a few more of those...’ He paused looking over the battlefield through the screens. “Wait where did the fighter go...”
BOOM!
All of Aldo’s screens go black for a second as a sound and shockwave reverberate through the entire dungeon. Even the Dungeon core room was affected.
When the screens came back the northeast corner outside the fort was a smoking crater. Aldo was shocked beyond belief, maybe if the Lord was here he would have been able to prevent his hesitation, but Aldo was still Priest Aldo in a lot of ways, and seeing a crater where one of his behemoth trump cards was previously, shook him to his new black non-beating heart.
The silver lining was everyone else was also frozen. Aldo’s fear turned to another realization when he also noticed that the Dwarf and Elf were missing. He franticly looked through all the screens only to catch movement out of the corner of his eye, in the Dungeon room. He spun around and froze as a massive battle ax head softly touched his neck.
“Ah, ah, ah. Let's talk.” The Dwarf said to him in a cheerfully dangerous tone. “We are just here to talk, right Adia.”
“Why yes Bour, just a friendly conversation,” Adia said sitting on the lap of the avatar of the lord, while said Avatar sat on the purple throne shape Dungeon Core. She stroked his hair. The Avatar looked terrified.
Aldo’s mind was racing. The monster in him wanted to rip their heads off, but the sentience in him wanted nothing more than to run away like his master had. The sentience was winning by a mile and a half by the way. The only reason why he hadn’t moved was because his feet weren’t responding to his brain’s orders, and that was probably the only thing keeping him alive at the moment.
Bour lowered his battle ax. “Good, good you seem to be sentient enough to make good decisions. You might live to see another day.”
Adia pouted. “That’s too bad, I thought we were going to have to talk to the handsome one here.” She continued to pet the Avatar’s hair, then suddenly shrugged jumping off of his lap. She looked at Aldo with a playful expression “You sir, are cheating.”
“And while we believe in tempering our members in the crucible of battle and fire, we would prefer that there is some order in that crucible.” Bour continued. “This however is just pure chaos.” He pointed at the screen. “Even for a Horde Dungeon, it is a bit much.”
Aldo looked confused.
“I don’t think he is getting it Bour. It’s Aldo, right? You don’t mind me calling you Aldo... You see Aldo, you’re not supposed to send all of your floor bosses to the first floor. Did you even read your Dungeon manual? That’s like one of the first rules.” Adia inquired. “Even for a rouge Dungeon, there has to be some type of order. You don’t want to become a Chaos Dungeon or worse a Demon Dungeon do you?”
Aldo looked even more confused.
Realization hit Adia. “Of course, you didn’t read the manual, fucking rogue gods and their blatant disregard for the rules of the game. That’s why no one likes them.” Adia sighed “Most don’t live long enough to make Chaos Dungeons, but during a Breaking like this there is enough Mana to push a Rouge Dungeon into a Chaos one and the Demon one not too short afterward.”
“You see the floors are testing grounds for certain levels of beings. If you send up one or two elites from your second floor, the GAME has to adjust the reward system. So while you may wipe out a few groups the remaining groups get more bonuses for surviving the new threats, the extra rewards come from your Dungeon Mana well. That is the balance.” Bour explained.
Aldo finally found his voice. “But we sent everything we currently had.”
“Yes, you did,” Bour confirmed
“And that's bad?” The Thrall asked.
“Very bad. The rewards have to be proportional to the threat. All of those homeless now have to be given professions, classes, or general Skills some of them unique ones, and quite a few skill levels. Now a Quest needs to be generated to protect them beyond here, because they just became important parts of this local power struggle, over a one hundred professional NCCs with powerful Trades skills and levels in them, yeah that changes the course of history, and Gaia can’t allow that potential to go to waste.” Adia said shaking her head. “What a pain for the Celestial body, and you don’t want her attention. You know you don’t want that, correct?”
Aldo knew that because of his implanted knowledge. He nodded slowly.
“Good but...” Bour started while touching his Battle ax to a storage ring. “It can be all fixed.” The ax disappeared as he smiled at Aldo.
Aldo perked up at that. “How?”
“Easy,” Adia said.
“Very easy actually,” Bour added.
“How?” Aldo begged.
“Well, there are two ways, right Bour? Easy and hard” Adia asked nonchalantly.
“Oh yeah, I hadn’t thought about that option myself.” He took out his ax again.
“No idiot, not that easy...though that would be the easiest.” She pondered, then shook her head “Nah, the boss will be mad at us if we did that.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“You’re right.” Bour put his ax away again.
Aldo had felt Bour’s killing intent for just a second, and started to sweat the sheer tier disparity kept him from moving.
Adia cocked her head to the side and looked at Aldo. “Hm, I didn’t know Thralls could sweat. Cool, you learn something every day they say.” She joked “I guess there are three ways, but you clearly don’t want the last, am I right?” She pointed at Bour who was tapping his storage ring.
“No!” He yelled involuntarily “I mean no.” He recovered quickly. “I’ll do anything to avoid that option.” Survival was every creature's default.
“Good, your first, and most straightforward option is to kill the entire team, and all of the homeless people, that goes without saying. It is the GREAT GAME and power trumps all.” Adia said filing her perfectly manicured pinky finger with a nail file that she had taken out of her storage ring. The damn thing would have to be at least Epic tier to work on her nails. She was literally filing her nails with a file worth more than a bank vault full of gold.
“Unfortunately that is unlikely to happen since they have your bane, not only figured out, but they have all of your allies in range. The bad news is that running out of mana isn’t going to save you. That one attack gave them back half of their mana. Which isn’t a lot, but they also leveled up and...” Bour stopped as Adia looked at him with harsh brown eyes. “Oh right can’t let you know about their bonus effects and whatnot.” He rolled his eyes.
“Anyway,” Adia took over shaking her head. “Or you can concede victory, and we can convince them to leave this damn Dungeon. The Greater’s are a part of their quest line so you would have to sacrifice them, but you will get to keep your High Ghoul at her current level.”
Aldo pondered for a second. “Just so I am clear, you would let us win if we wipe out the whole party?” Aldo tentatively inquired.
“Absolutely, we would not want weak adventurers. By all means, try, but only with what you have left.” Bour warned dangerously.
“Yes, if handsome there tried to join, the third option is back on the table, no tier 5s now. It will be the only option available to you moving forward if he does.” Adia confirmed Aldo’s fear by pointing at the Avatar.
Aldo’s plan to win went out the proverbial window with the Avatar option now off the table. He had to assume that he couldn’t join either. Fear was overriding his programming. “I concede then.” Aldo sighed dejectedly.
“Great choice my boy,” Bour said.
“Excellent. Now let's see if your partner will agree since you can’t make that decision without her.” Adia shrugged then jumped back on the Avatar’s lap and started to pet him once more.
***
LONG BEACH
PRIME
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< ALERT >
{Your team leader is stunned, duration 58 seconds.}
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Soto read the prompt and dismissed it quickly, but was still in awe of what just happened. Colonel took out a Greater ghoul by himself. He also took out a large portion of the northern wall knocking Sugar on the ground.
“Goddamn it!” Sugar yelled as she started to get up.
‘She’s fine.’ Soto thought.
Soto saw Lisette still trying to get up, even with all of the lingering damage that she had, there was no way she wasn’t stacked with debuffs. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw more movement from the north. He admonished himself. The ghouls had recovered first. “No, you don’t!”
He pulled out his arrow and fired it at Lisette. She was a burnt husk at this point, but he knew a cornered enemy was a dangerous, and unpredictable enemy, and he wasn’t taking any chances until he saw her loot globe. Just as the arrow was about to hit Lisette, Soto saw a Greater Ghoul jump in front of it taking the damage, and shielding Lisette.
Instead of reacting right away. It turned around and deftly picked up Lisette, and ran away to the north, Lisette screaming in pain from her skin falling off.
“What the fuck?” He pulled out another bladed arrow, nocked it, and aimed at the retreating Greater Ghoul holding and protecting her. “Get back-”
“Behind you!” Sugar yelled.
Decades of training kicked in, and Soto just reacted falling to the ground and rolling away from his position. It was a good thing he did because an eye blink later a Lesser Ghoul smashed into his previous location with such force it made a sickening crunch and left behind a loot globe.
“Ice shard!” Sugar chanted shooting it over Soto’s head hitting the Greater ghoul that had another struggling Lesser ready to throw.
The Greater Ghoul stumbled back from the impact more out of surprise than actual damage. Instead, it turned its ire on Sugar.
Sugar wanted all that smoke, however.
“VOID BOLT!” She hit the arm holding the Lesser Ghoul ripping it off with the small ball of black energy. She had a feral grin on her face as she cast. That grin disappeared when she saw Soto aiming an arrow at her.
“Duck!” Soto yelled as he released the arrow.
Sugar didn’t have the training that Soto had, but she did have survival instincts and a Novice level Danger Sense Skill.
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{SKILL NAME: Danger sense (PASSIVE)
SKILL LEVEL: Novice 4
DESCRIPTION: The player gains an innate sense when they are in danger.
SKILL EFFECT: Get a feeling when you are in danger.
STUDENT EFFECT: Marks dangers in your sight the amount is based on the level of Skill.
NOVICE EFFECT: Gives you direction in which to dodge dangers from one target not mark in your sight.}
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Sugar didn’t hesitate to roll the direction the red flashing arrow in her HUD was telling her to go. Soto’s arrow passed right by where her head was and sank right into a Lesser Ghoul’s eye, before exploding into pieces of brain matter and gore. “Gross, hey you almost killed me.” She yelled at Soto.
“Better than being eaten while still alive mamacita,” Soto replied seriously.
Sugar turned back to the near-headless Ghoul as it jumped. “How the hell is that thing still alive? “Fire Bolt.” She finished it off.
“I guess I need to...OH shit,” Soto started, but then had to roll away again. “Thank Gaia that my knees aren’t nearly as bad in this game as they are in real life, else I would be really hurting.” He righted himself and returned fire at the Ghoul tossing Greater Ghoul.
[Johnny can we get some fire on this asshole.] Soto said in the party chat.
[Copy that Sergeant Major] Johnny replied after getting over the shock of what was going on. Followed by the Greater Ghoul being covered with Greek Fire. The remaining cannons all start firing as well and without the Lisette size distraction, they kill off the remaining Ghoul in less than thirty seconds right as all the homeless gunners run out of Mana.
[Ceasefire, Ceasefire.] Soto said waving his hand palm out in front of his face, not that they could fire more they were exhausted.
“Ceasefire!” It was echoed throughout the fort by all of the gunners. They all looked haggard and tired. Completely drained of Mana, some even passed out giving their all to save their fellow homeless brothers and sisters.
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< QUEST UPDATE >
{Quest Name: STOP THE OUTBREAK III
Quest Type: Legacy (Legendary Chain)
Description: Something ominous has been unleashed on to your local area investigator for more updates. You have found and killed Feral ghouls which means there is at least a lesser ghoul making the feral ones. Now that you have killed a lesser ghoul you are now aware that there must be a Greater ghoul controlling them. Also, the homeless NPCs are under attack from the ghouls, protect them.
Requirements: Find the source of the Undead.
Objective 1: Find and kill 3 Greater Ghouls (2/3)
Objective 2: kill 25 lesser Ghouls (25/25)(Completed)
Objective 3: Save homeless 100/152 remaining
Time limit: None
Rewards: EXPERIENCE, Legacy shirt, and variable based on how many you save.
Failure penalty: Death, zombified}
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Soto looked at the update and frowned. “Ugh, now we have to hunt down the last Greater Ghoul. That’s just fucking great.” He turned to Sugar's realization on his face. “Jake?”
“Who?” Sugar looked confused.
“I mean Colonel.” He turned to the south wall.
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< QUEST COMPLETE >
{Quest Name: STOP THE OUTBREAK III
Quest Type: Legacy (Legendary Chain)
Description: Something ominous has been unleashed on to your local area investigator for more updates. You have found and killed Feral ghouls which means there is at least a lesser ghoul making the feral ones. Now that you have killed a lesser ghoul you are now aware that there must be a Greater ghoul controlling them. Also, the homeless NPCs are under attack from the ghouls, protect them.
Requirements: Find the source of the Undead.
Objective 1: Find and kill 3 Greater Ghouls (3/3)(Completed)
Objective 2: kill 25 lesser Ghouls (25/25)(Completed)
Objective 3: Save homeless 100/152 remaining(Completed)
Rewards: 150000 EXP, Dark Archer shirt & 100000 bonus EXP a General Skill tome, and 1 skill point
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Everyone in the fort would have leveled up if they had a class. The fatigue was still there, but it started to quickly go away as they all relaxed.
Sugar looked at Soto confused. “How?”
“I don’t know, maybe... Look out!” Soto tried to yell as Lisette now fully healed, stabbed her whole arm through Sugar’s chest.
“Now, where were we, bitch?” Lisette said smiling at the dying mage.