Creevar’s Killers plus two were attacking their breakfast vigorously in the common room of their usual lodgings when staying in Vaidon, the town that hosted Creevar’s High Temple on Parthia.
They were engaged in gently teasing Evor and Essa who had given in to the inevitable and accepted the class of Scout from the System. Further teasing got them to accept, reluctantly, a second visit to the nearby public baths.
Sreecator gave Harrassan a discrete signal and the two remained behind as their friends departed in search of hot water.
Sreecator sipped his tea, “Creevar visited me in my dreams again last night, I have to return to that dungeon.”
“What! Why?” asked Harrassan.
Sreecator shrugged, “the dungeon has something he wants.”
“Right, so we have to go back.”
“Well I have to, I think I should take one of the guys for company. Why don’t the rest of you see to prying the twins out of the desert. They have proved very useful in handling supplies, maintaining our camps and ferreting odd but useful titbits of information.”
Harrassan thought about it for a short time, “take, no, take Zashaan.”
“I was thinking Horaxanna.”
“Me too but then I remembered how seasick she gets even on the calmest of seas.”
* * *
Mary watched the second attempt by the fifteen strong band of adventurers from New Town. The two standard patrols functioned perfectly, a few careful attacks from ink clouds and then a withdrawal to find reinforcements under those same ink clouds.
The fight against one of the reinforced patrols was brutal but the adventurers did overcome though they needed several potions to fully recover from the fight.
They finally managed to cross her outer perimeter, and they were headed towards one of her sea serpents.
Oh yes it had been fun creating those, starting with a venomous snake she had found swimming from one island to another, mapping the things DNA, mixing and matching with an eel for improved swimming ability, a foolish New Town sea elf for dual lung and gill system and her wyvern for scales and some inspired tinkering to boost its size and the potency of its poison and lace its scales with carbon nanotubes.
The Adventurers were certainly surprised when the three squid that preceded and partially hid her half grown serpent inked the water and instead of barracuda the modest sized – a mere twenty meters long – sea serpent shot out of the spreading ink cloud and attacked them.
Mary studied the fight closely, her creation for the most part worked well, it would need some more work to eliminate a couple of bugs and to improve its best points.
The adventurers were able to overwhelm it but at a cost, two of their number wouldn’t be returning under their own power.
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Mary decided to be generous though if the serpent had had its planned attendants the party would have been virtually annihilated as they had lost all attempt at a defensive formation. She dropped two pearls and three imperials, that with the sea serpent’s corpse should be a generous plenty.
She still couldn’t believe how easy it was to defeat these adventurers. How the beep was she to both lay out a decent challenge and maintain an adequate defence. The two were incompatible.
‘Hmmm... maybe if I expand my domain a bit more and withdraw my real defences a bit, I can create a thick outer layer with tissue paper defences.’
* * *
Rap’ody the elected leader of the raid group arranged for the bodies of his two deceased raid members to be hurried to the Temple of Ocidon for resurrection then went to find the recently confirmed guildmaster Sildanus to report on their recent attempt on the dungeon and to hand over the body of the new monster for assessment and valuation.
Rap’ody related the result of their excursion, the outer band with the usual mix of defenders that refused to press their attack against a unified party that confronted them, their withdrawal to a second zone with larger bands, bands that also included larger and more powerful monsters then the third area with the Sea Serpent.
Sildanus was shaken when he saw the body of the sea serpent, the thing was a reptile with gills and very snakelike. All present discussed the thing and possible tactics that could be used against it. The presence of this thing in what the guild arbitrarily decided was the dungeon’s third level underscored its classification of Elite+.
* * * INTERLUDE 1 * * *
After learning of their Shaman’s findings and deductions the Fast Killers tribal leaders were unanimous in deciding to move. The new dungeon just didn’t smell right, all they’d found on their admittedly brief exploration were desert creatures and goblins but their sensitive noses said undead, powerful undead and demons.
As a preliminary precaution they packed up and moved to the furthest – from the dungeon and civilization – source of water they knew. Once settled at their temporary encampment the scouts went out well laden with water to look for a decent source far from the new dungeon. The chief also sent out a couple of messengers to warn the two other tribes they had amicable relations with.
* * * INTERLUDE 2 * * *
They were flying home after the Con, both siblings were feeling cramped despite the Hawaiiand Airlines jet they were on being roomy compared to most commercial airliners.
“So Mary, how come you knew so much about the blue screen thing? Come on spill.”
“Well Flip, I’ve been seein’ them for a while, something that calls itself ‘The System’ uses them to communicate an’ inform.”
Phil paused and thought about what to say, “So sis, exactly how long is some time and how has this thing affected you?”
“Um... I have gained ... skills and abilities as I ... level up. For example I can stay underwater for over five minutes now and I seem to be able cut through the sea like a fish. And ... I think I can talk with and understand dolphins,” Mary finished in a rush.
“So... a week ago I would have thought you were going mad sis but ... Um, when exactly did this begin and what does the um... system think you are?”
“Shortly after our visit to aunty Vera. Just a few weeks after that. Bluey, show my status to Flip.”
Phil looked over his sister's information thoughtfully before dismissing the screen. “Um... I wonder what will happen to the guys that chose races other than human?”
Mary jerked upright in her seat before slumping back in her seat and looked at her brother in horror. ‘Bluey? Is that possible?’
« They insisted on being given that option. They will change over the next few days. »
“Oh beep!”
“Why are you always going beep? I never minded your swearing.”
Mary glared into the distance, “blame Bluey, I mean the System, not my choice. An’ ‘cording to Bluey they will change over the next few days.”
The siblings remained silent for the rest of the flight trying to figure out how this was going to affect them as no way would the media and government not investigate everyone who attended the Con when some of its attendees started to change into hobbits, elves, dwarves and other stranger things.