Arthe and Frith had been in the Fort of the Oath-breakers for about 2 hours and in that time they had slain 21 Dullahans, 14 Specters and 9 Skeleton Knights. In fact if they had been killing the ghouls as well then they would have killed over 100 monsters by now, trouble was they were bored almost to tears with this dungeon. It was so easy, especially with Arthe's holy magic, so the two of them had made a pact. For the next floor of the dungeon Arthe would rely solely on his sword skills and Frith would only use her epee and not her stiletto, this was of course only until they came up against monsters that couldn't be beaten without using Holy magic. Death Knights were one of these foes, they had seen a couple of them already and had studiously avoided them, even though they were at level 131 and level 129 respectively they had decided to steer clear for the time being.
On the second floor of the dungeon the main opponent were skeletal knights and the occasional skeletal mage, Arthe stuck to his word and only used the buffs he had obtained prior to becoming a paladin. He dispatched the first couple of skeletal knights using his targeted thrust skill to shatter their spines and from then on stuck to using blade dance repeatedly, mainly because it distracted the mages and enabled Frith to sneak up and decapitate them from behind. As they traveled through the floor Arthe's sword skill began to level up at an extremely fast rate, he was fighting monsters above his level and making sure that every time he used them it was to inflict a fatal strike.
This tactic served to accumulate experience for his sword skills and his Analytical blade passive, which was now at Intermediate 2, his sword skill had reached Beginner 9 and was ready to level at any moment. Arthe was hoping that it would provide some sort of epic bonuses when it did reach intermediate as most of the skills he had learned had done so, but if it didn't he would just go back to using his holy magic more in the future.
By this point the two adventurers were at the final room on this floor and were taking a brief rest before pushing on, Arthe was barely sweating and hardly even hungry whereas Frith was sweating heavily and shoveling food into her mouth as fast as she could. Arthe had managed to keep steadily upgrading his cooking skill because of Frith's enormous appetite so he didn't really mind that it cost a lot of money to keep her fed, she on the other hand was beginning to get a little bit irritated about Arthe's seemingly never ending stamina and always full belly.
"What the hell is with this, here i am sweating hard enough to fill a bath tub and hungrier than a pregnant she-wolf but you're just sat there like we've been taking a leisurely stroll in the park. Seriously must be nice to be a whatever class you are and not get tired or hungry."
"Hahaha it's not like I don't get tired or hungry, it just takes double the amount of physical exercise to affect me in that way. Freya sustains me in the lean times so that I may sustain others in the prosperous times." Arthe responded with a chuckle and a pat on Frith's back.
"Yeah well you could give me some of that sustenance occasionally you know, instead of watching me when I'm looking my worst."
Privately Arthe thought that Frith looked beautiful covered with a sheen of sweat and he found it difficult to tear his gaze away from her lips when she was eating, but he could never tell her these things because she'd batter him and have him arrested quicker than he could apologize.
When Frith was rested and was feeling better the two of them gathered their gear and entered the last room on floor 2. It appeared to be empty except for a couple of sarcophagi in the center of the room, as they drew closer to them the lids of the coffins began to shake.
The left hand tomb burst open and a skeletal hand appeared over the side of the sarcophagus, as this happened the lid on the right hand coffin flew off and a low moaning issued from it.
The monster in the left hand coffin finally heaved itself out just before the right hand monster also appeared. On the left was a named Skeletal Knight and on the right a named Dullahan, each was wielding a long sword but where the Knight had a shield the Dullahan had his head. Captain Edward the Betrayer was the name of the Skeletal Knight and the Dullahan was called Sir Garrik the Deceiver, normally players under level 150 would be scared at this point however Arthe was not normal and Frith was probably programmed without fear.
The two of them just looked at each other and mouthed 'Ancient Equipment', before charging straight into battle. Frith engaged Garrik because he was still covered in flesh which provided better opportunities for her stabbing attacks, this left Arthe facing Edward not that he minded as Dullahans smelt bloody awful and he'd had more than enough of their stench. Arthe blocked Edward's first attack with his shield and followed up with a Targeted Thrust to the head, unfortunately it was blocked by the monsters shield. His next attack was done using the 5 Courageous steps of Asgarde, this put him in place behind the enemy where he used the one sword skill he had never used before.
"Splintering of Yggdrasil!"
After Arthe cried out the name of his skill his sword turned bright blue and cleaved downward at almost supersonic speed, cleaving through bone and armor alike as though they were made of paper. The skill cut Edward the betrayer in half and even created a deep chasm in the floor where the sword struck it, the sheer devastation of the skill shocked even Arthe and distracted the Dullahan Garrik so much that Frith was able to stab its head and cut off its legs before it could even realize. As the two died both Arthe and Frith leveled up and he received a couple more notifications as well.
Sword Mastery has increased to Intermediate 8.
Sword Skill of Ancient Numenor has increased to Intermediate 1. New effects applied.
Using the Sword skill now costs less Mana.
Breath of Ymir now provides 15% Magic resistance as well.
Footsteps of Asgarde have increased from 5 steps to 7
Fatal strikes has increased from 4 blows to 5
Splintering of Yggdrasil may now cleave through any magical barrier of lower level.
Targeted thrust may now be used to slash your opponents.
Analytical blade has increased to Intermediate 3.
Arthe read through the additional effects and improvements to his sword skills and was happy to see that he could now use an increased number of moves for most of the skills, but he was most happy to discover that he could now use his favorite sword skill to slash as well as thrust. Thrusts dealt great damage but could leave the user wide open to counter attacks, now that he could use Targeted thrust as a slash he had more options in combat.
When he had finished looking at his skills he saw Frith inspecting the equipment that had been dropped by the two named monsters, there were 5 pieces of loot in total. 2 pieces were armor and the other 3 were miscellaneous items, the armor looked extremely old and the items didn't appear to be much newer. Frith handed the armor pieces to Arthe whilst she identified the other items.
Ancient Breastplate of the Forsworn:
Durability: 15/120
Defense: 25
This breastplate was worn by the once proud captain of the guard at an important border fort, he was cursed to wander the world as an undead because he betrayed his oath when called upon to fulfill it.
Equip:
+20 STR
+15 STAM
+15 Affinity with undead
Curses the wearer by cutting their Mana pool by a third.
If purified and repaired the effects of this armor will change
Requirements:
Level 150
STR +100
STAM +80
The second piece of armor was a set of intricate chainmail.
Chainmail Hauberk of the Ancient Adjutant:
Durability: 12/100
Defense: 19
This chainmail once belonged to a famous military adviser, he encouraged the betrayal of an entire border fort and so was cursed for all eternity to never ending torment.
Equip:
+20 AGI
+20 STR
+10 WIS
+10 Affinity with Undead
+15% chance to deflect arrows.
If purified and repaired the effects of this armor will change
Requirements:
Level 150
+75 STR
+50 END
+60 WIS
Whilst Arthe had been looking over the armor Frith had finished identifying the other 3 items; one was a necklace, the second a ring and the third was a small key. The necklace was typical of such things and provided a small boost to vitality and strength whereas the ring was a rare type which increased Mana regeneration by a whopping 18 points per second, the key however was a mystery.
Small silver key:
Durability:20/30
This key is similar to ones used to open locked desks or small lock-boxes
The description was pretty vague and so Arthe and Frith spent 10 minutes looking around the room for somewhere to use the key, needless to say they didn't find it. They were slightly disappointed by the drops but Arthe was sure that once he had purified and repaired the Ancient armor pieces then he and Frith would have more than made up for the effort of cleansing the dungeon, plus they still had yet to find the information on the whereabouts of the Justicar's Sword.
And so they continued on up to the next floor where they encountered several more named skeletal knights and even larger numbers of Dullahan, as they cleared the monsters out they each gained another 10 levels and obtained more pieces of Ancient armor. By the time they had reached the fourth and final floor of the fort Arthe was level 152 and Frith had just reached 150, on top of this Arthe had leveled his sword skills another couple of times and had also got his shield mastery up to Intermediate 7 and his sword mastery to Intermediate 9. If he kept hunting and leveling at this pace then the majority of his skills would be in the advanced state by the time he got over level 200, this was only possible due to consistently honing his combat skills and little else. The only craft skill he was increasing at the same rate as his combat skills was his repair skill, this was because most of his equipment was junk and he had to keep repeatedly fixing it or it would fall apart.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
As Arthe and Frith fought their way across the final floor they began to fight any death knights that they came across, the first couple of times were very near things and he had to resort to using some of his holy spells in order to win but as they gained vast experience from killing them they both attained levels of over 160 by the time they came to the boss room. Both Arthe and Frith had made the Assumption that the final boss was likely to be a named death knight with a couple of other monsters with him, therefore they had decided to abandon their no holy power deal and go all out from the beginning. To that end Arthe had buffed both of them with his strongest spells and had even cast Divine Armaments on their weapons to give them any extra advantage, they had decided that Arthe should engage the boss monster whilst Frith distracted the mobs. This plan would allow Arthe to quickly dispatch the boss with holy spells and then aid Frith in cleaning up the guards.
Unfortunately they hadn't realized that there would be quite so many guard monsters, when they opened the door to the boss room they saw 8 guards and one gigantic death knight standing at the far end. Right there and then they decided to swap roles, Arthe would kill all the guards and Frith would distract the boss. Since she had higher agility than Arthe there was a lower chance of her getting hit whilst distracting him, this also meant she couldn't deal quite as much damage to him and that she would run out of stamina quicker as well. Arthe would have to hurry and dispatch the mobs so that he could quickly go to Frith's aid.
The battle began with Arthe firing a couple of Holy bolts and a Holy smite at some of the guard monsters; the mob consisted of 2 skeletal mages, 2 skeletal knights and 4 Dullahans. The guard mob rushed at Arthe in retaliation even though some of them were badly burnt by his holy attack, he fired more Holy Bolts at the lead monsters and managed to disintegrate 2 of the Dullahans almost instantly. Then he had to use his shield to block some of the magic fired at him by the mages, they appeared to be using mainly ice spells so he activated his Breath of Ymir skill and dove into battle. He used his sword to cut the legs of another Dullahan before activating blade dance when he was stood in the middle of the group, the skill killed the last Dullahan and one of the Skeletal Knights before Arthe finished off the crippled Dullahan with a downward thrust. Now he only had to deal with the two mages and the final skeletal knight, he looked over at Frith and saw that she was leading the boss in a merry dance away from him but also noted that she was breathing quite heavily.
Arthe then used Holy smite on each of the Skeletal mages, stunning them, before dispatching the remaining Knight with a Targeted slash to the skull. Charging at the mages before they recovered; he activated one of his special aggressive holy spells, Blade of Purity, this skill coated his sword in a dense layer of holy power that would cut through the very souls of the undead disregarding their body or armor.
The strike went clean through the bodies of the two skeletal mages and the crumpled to the floor, Arthe then carried on his charge straight at the back of the death knight that was currently trapping Frith in a corner.
Arthe didn't have time to kill the death knight using his sword as it was about to bring its weapon down on Frith's head so he used his Wrath of the Heavens spell and directed its full force towards the death knights back, the beam of light scythed through the spine of the death knight to bathe Frith in its healing warmth. The death knight burst into white flames and collapsed to the ground screaming in agony, eventually it burned out and only a pile of white ash remained.
Wrath of the Heavens skill increased to level 2
"Phew that was a close one, thought I was gonna get crushed for sure by that one." Frith didn't even seem slightly scared as she inspected the remains of the death knight and poked at it with her sword.
"So why haven't you used that skill before now, it could have killed all the monsters in the dungeon in pretty much one go couldn't it? I mean I'm not complaining because you let me get loads of experience but surely it would have been faster to use that before now."
Arthe scratched his head and wondered how to respond.
"Well it's a bit of a Mana drain and it only has an area of effect of 5 meters so we would have had to attract every monster in the castle to the same place if i was to get them all in one go, plus you weren't the only one that needed the experience. I needed to improve my individual sword skills and other skills as well, I can't always rely on being able to insta-kill everything with that move."
Frith looked thoughtful after hearing this and then nodded at him in understanding, then she began to collect all the loot off of the corpses while Arthe headed over to the large desk that the Death knight had been stood in front of before the battle began.
On the desk were rotting map fragments and black candles lit with green flames, Arthe put the candles out and summoned a light globe instead. Green flames on black candles were obviously not a good sign and so he wanted to be sure that there was no dark magic still in play, the light globe bobbed happily in the center of the room casting its rays into every corner. By its light Arthe could see a small locked compartment on the underside of the desk he took out the silver key they had obtained earlier and tried it in the lock, the lock opened but the key fell apart at the same time. He opened the drawer and found a small book and long handled knife inside, taking a look at the knife first he saw it had a stiletto blade and put it on top of the desk for Frith to take a look at. The book was remarkably well preserved and appeared to be a diary of some sort, many of the entries were worn and illegible but some were still clear.
The first readable entry was about various supplies being brought into the fort and the second spoke of new recruits, it wasn't until the third entry that Arthe's interest was peaked.
3rd day of summer.
Today a new adviser appeared at the front gates, he had been sent to help me with a problem I had recently become aware of.
Many of my new recruits had dark tendencies but i was unable to get rid of them at the present time due to the recent undead attacks, the adviser has assured me that their tendencies are nothing more than harmless jokes.
6th day of summer.
How did I ever get along without my new adjutant, he has been extremely helpful in creating strategies to deal with the undead and is also very popular amongst the recruits. He has told me that finding a secure hiding place for the artifact should be our top priority, I am unsure as i have long been ordered to keep the artifact inside the fort at all times.
12th day of summer.
I don't know why I resisted Garrik for so long on the matter of the Sword, now that I have moved it to a safer location I feel so much more at ease. Garrik helps me make most of the decisions and he has been teaching me about his religion, it seems harmless enough although a couple of the older soldiers have been trying to persuade me that Garrik is up to no good. I don't know why they don't like him he has been providing me with some truly excellent meals and has been casting magic on me to relieve the headaches i get sometimes.
31rst day of summer.
I have executed 3 of the veterans today for insubordination, they tried to murder Garrik and i cannot allow that. He has become the most important member of my staff and assures me that he will continue to help, tomorrow he is taking some troops to go and force a local village to pay more tax. He says it is to help defend our borders better but I have some minor misgivings, I'm sure its nothing to worry about. Before he leaves he is going to baptize me as a full member of his religion, by dawn I shall be a member of the Embinyu church.
Date unknown
What have i done, I have abandoned my duty. I have betrayed my kingdom and failed its people, my blood burns in my veins with the curses of a thousand dead souls. I have been tricked but that is no excuse, my only hope is that someone will find this book and discover where the Sword is hidden. I leave these instructions to its location; head west from the front gate until you find a large blue snake, head towards its mouth and you will come across a cave, that cave hides the sword of the most holy.
May Freya forgive me......
You have discovered a clue to the location of the Justicar's Sword!
Arthe put the book down and crossed his chest, he knew the story was part of the game but he still felt sorry for the non-existent Captain, tricked by his adviser and cursed for all time. While he had been reading the diary Frith had finished identifying the items and had stacked them according to type, there was a pile of armor and small pile of junk items and a pile of materials.
Arthe picked up the dagger and gave it to Frith to look at before showing her the diary, when she finished looking at it she first offered a quick prayer to Freya and then gave Arthe a brief hug. He was a bit unsure what to do at this point but he needn't have worried, she was back to her usual self straight away and had pulled out a map of the local area.
"Okay if we head west from here there is a river about 2 days away, I can only assume that's the blue snake and that we have to head down stream to where the mouth of the river is. Hopefully we'll come across a cave at some point where we'll find that sword for you, but before we do that you are going to repair and purify all these items so that we are more than ready to sell them."
Frith offered Arthe a grin before handing him the first piece of armor to repair.