11. Tilarack’s Tower pt. 1

I pulled up my class status screen and quickly leveled [Warrior] and [Mage] up to level 23 to match Lord. Then I spent some time staring at it, deciding what I wanted to do with the hours I had remaining before I had to resume the mantle of [Lord].

Name

Hail Jeoran

Active Classes

Age

15

Class

Level

Race

Human (blood of the travelers)

Lord

23

Class

Placeholder level 5

Acolyte

4

Experience

0/500,000

Mage

23

Job

Earl

Warrior

23

Titles

Dungeon Master I

Archer

4

Veteran of Mooncrest Manor

Free Points

Veteran of The Battle for North Shire

Experience

21992

Stats

25

Skills

8

I considered spending the day questing, despite the trouble that it would cause for the Travelers who would have to wait for new quests to be brought into the game. I had enjoyed my time soloing as a [Warrior], and I was going to do so again. But not right now, I decided.

Instead, I turned my attention to my contacts list. While there were dozens of Travelers I’d known from , I was looking for someone who didn’t know what I really was. I settled on Wren, the healer who had supported my party while I had been grinding gnolls in Kordock. I sent her a PM, making certain that the system continued to display my assumed psuedonym.

Hagi

Hey. I’m LFG. Need a warrior for anything?

Wren

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Oh, hey! You’re just in time, actually. What level are you now?

Hagi

23

Wren

Oh. you’ve been busy! Well, that’s fine. We were about to do a level 15-20 dungeon. You’re over the limit so you’ll be bumped down three levels, but you should still get pretty good exp, right?

Hagi

Yeah … It will be my first time tanking a dungeon though.

Wren

It’s fine, it’s my first time healing one. I’m so worried about letting someone die, if I was in my real body my hands would be shaking

Hagi

It’s not that big of a deal if you do, Wren. I won’t get mad at you if that happens, promise

Wren

You might not, but the others will. Letting a tank die is, like, the worst thing a healer can do. Anyway, log in and we’ll invite you. We’re already at the summoning stone.

Hagi

Right, I’ll be right there.

I logged in, appearing in the capital city of Kordock under my assumed identity. A Party invite from a stranger popped up almost as soon as I had finished materializing, and a moment later a summons appeared as well. I accepted it, and once more I was thrown through the twisting kaleidoscope that occurs whenever I Fast Travel, Portal, or am Summoned.

“Did you play all night after the party broke up yesterday or what?” Azarath asked

“Yeah, sort of,” I admitted.

“Well it’s good for us,” Lyle said. “You were having trouble keeping aggro yesterday. Hopefully that’s not a problem today, or else we might have to replace you. I’m not sure if it was gear or if you’re just not cut out to be a warrior.”

Serina slapped Lyle on the back of the head. “Lyle, Hagi’s a friend. Don’t be rude to your friends.”

Lyle looked surprised for a second. “Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I partied with a real jerk last night after our party broke up at the gnoll lair. Besides, I’m only leveling [warrior] to unlock [duelist],” I said.

I took a moment to take in my surroundings. We were in a dead forest, and the summoning stone was just outside of a tall tower made of gray stone. The entrance to the tower stood open, but the swirling white motes proved that it we were outside of a dungeon.

“Tilarack’s tower,” Wren informed me as I looked upwards towards the top. It was at least sixty meters tall, with a radius of ten meters. An impressive building for certain. Above the entrance were two stone gargoyles locked in a staring contest. “One of them, at least. I guess there’s a couple just like it spread out through the world. They’re all dungeons, but the others are higher level.”

“Tilarack was born in Kordock, it makes sense that her first tower would be the weakest,” I said.

“What? You know the lore behind this place?” she asked.

“If it’s Tilarack’s tower, then yeah. She was a reclusive genius wizard that died eighty years ago or so. She moved around a lot because her experiments kept getting outlawed in the nation she was living in, so she built a lot of towers. I guess that she turned them into dungeons when she left them behind to keep others from getting her research so easily,” I said.

The others exchanged looks, then Azarath asked “How does a noob like you know the lore behind Tilarack’s tower? We only know because the guide mentions it as a good place to gain levels, but yesterday you said you weren’t following any of the speed leveling strategies.”

“I heard someone talking about it a while ago and eavesdropped. Does it matter?” I asked. “Let’s go.”

Equipping my mace and my shield, I stepped through the swirling motes into the unknown.

Welcome Dungeon Master, To Tilarack’s Tower

Do you wish to challenge the unique instance?

Yes

No

I debated for a few moments before selecting yes. Another prompt appeared asking me to declare my intent.

“I intend to evolve this dungeon to make it more difficult. I wish my reward to be Tilarack’s notes and research. For these two things, I vow not to destroy the dungeon core.”

The prompt faded away, and my friends were zoned into the core instance with me.

“That was weird,” Azarath said. “You stepped in first, but were the last to appear, Hagi.”

“Does it matter?” I asked.

“If you’re having connection or equipment issues as a tank, then yes it does matter,” Lyle said evenly. “Are you using some old equipment? I know they made this game backwards compatible with a lot of old helmets, but that doesn’t mean that--”

“My connection is fine. My helmet is fine,” I said. “Come on, let’s go kill some … whatever it is that’s guarding this tower. Imps? Those look like imps.”

They were imps. Little humanoid monsters with a long tail that ended in a sharp point, black fur that covered most of their body except for their faces and palms, and red skin. Their faces were twisted, somehow, with a jaw that came to a sharp point and eyes that were too cruel to sympathize with. Their ears stuck out to the sides, and they had short horns sticking out of their foreheads that came to a sharp edge.

Despite our conversation, the group of nine or so imps in the bottom floor hadn’t noticed us and were dancing or wandering around the zone. Two of them were fighting, while four others watched and cheered the combatants on.

I swallowed nervously, because I had never tanked such a large pull before.

“Let me get into position,” Serina said, dropping into stealth. “I’ll solo the one in the corner.”

“I’ll [Polymorph] two of them for you,” Azarath said, cutting the number of enemies I’d be tanking down to six.

“I’ll pick up any that peel off of you and target Wren,” Lyle promised. “Just charge into the middle of them as soon as Serina is in position and do your best, Hagi.”

I nodded and, once everyone was ready for the pull, I activated [Enrage], which would increase the Anger I would generate over the next thirty seconds. I [Charged] into the center of the group, laying about the group with [Crushing Impacts]. I used [Battle Shout] to make certain that I had everything’s attention, and I tried to group the imps up the best I could.

Four of them began slashing at me with their claws. Rather than block or avoid the attacks, I welcomed them, as they each gave me a significant amount of Anger, allowing me to begin weaving [Furious Strike] into my attacks. [Furious Strike] was a a superior action compared to [Crushing Impact], causing more damage, more threat, and not using any Energy. Because it ran on Anger, there was no limit to how many times I could use it, while I could only activate [Crushing blow] about sixty times in a fight before I ran out of Energy. It was better to avoid [Crushing Blow] altogether, as [Charge] worked on the same resource, and if I ran out of Energy I’d lose much of my mobility.

Once I had the attention of all four of the imps who were slashing at me, I [Charged] the two which hadn’t aggroed on me initially. They were both spellcasters, and they were targeting Wren. I interrupted them both with a [Shield Bash], an expensive ability in terms of energy, but it carried a three second stun with it and was very good at gaining an enemy’s attention.

Once I had everything grouped up, I mostly just focused on staying alive. I threw out a few [Enraged Strikes] whenever possible, but largely I spent my excess anger on [Ignore Pain], which reduced the damage I was taking significantly. I blocked and dodged the attacks of the Imps, and occasionally interrupted the spellcaster with a [Shield Bash], but at this point in the fight my job was just to keep my little group from wandering towards Wren.

I didn’t have much time to focus on what the rest of the party was doing, but Lyle called for everyone to kill the spellcasting imps first. He offtanked one target while he and Azarath burned through its Health with their attacks. When they finished, Lyle leapt through the air and impaled the second one, dealing a critical hit that did nearly fifteen percent of the enemy’s health by itself.

Lyle was a Soldier, not a Warrior like me. He could have become a tank, but focused on DPS. He had Energy as one resource, like me, but his second resource was Discipline. I’m not entirely certain how the Soldier class works, but apparently it revolved around balancing the use of each resource to keep them even. It sounded complicated, and kind of fun, but I neither had the free class slot to try it out, nor the time and inclination.

Lyle was a pretty good spearman. He used an active ability on almost every attack, although I don’t think that his individual blows were as strong as my [Furious Strikes], and they had a much lower chance to critically hit. His overall DPS was higher than mine, however, and the way that his pike kept the enemies at range made him a pretty good off-tank.

Azarath was burning through his mana fast in the opening of the fight, which I knew meant that he would have to recharge soon. Indeed, he went OOM after the second spellcaster died, but by then Serina had killed her target and was joining us.

“Recast [Polymorph]!” I called out to Azarath when it was nearly time for those spells to end on his targets. He shot me an annoyed glance, but he followed my advice, then began dealing damage again with a mana-efficient version of [Lightning Bolt]. [Chain Lightning] would have been better, but I guess Azarath hadn’t perfected casting that spell yet. Suddenly he switched to [Fireball] for no reason that I could determine, and then he began casting [Ice Blast].

I found it strange, but apparently he felt more like a wizard when he was casting different spells, rather than focusing on one of them. I tuned him out and focused on tanking the remaining group. The melee imps had more health than the spellcasters, but once all three of the DPS members were focused on them they fell quickly in succession. Each of the Imps burst into black mist as the focused fire brought them down.

I broke the [Polymorph] on the two remaining enemies, who died rather helplessly now that they were alone.

“Huh, that wasn’t so bad,” I admitted after it was over.

“You did great, Hagi,” Wren complimented. “There’s four more floors like that, and then the first boss.”

‎