Leah looked over at Darin. “Might have something to do with us. The cave does scale to the players going through, so having two high-level fighters going through might increase the difficulty.”
“We're still D-rank,” Darin said, “and this is still pretty difficult regardless. And does it really matter? The only way out is if we win or we get killed in the process.”
“Then let's get going.”
They moved through the next series of tunnels, encountering a few fire golem grunts that were easily dispatched with one hit. That might be their reprieve, and they still had to fight their way through. It wasn't hard, but still, Leah could see Darin's point. For the moment it seemed like everything was conspiring against them. Some unseen hand was throwing every obstacle possible in their path.
But that was just her being paranoid. Of course there was something controlling this entire thing. The world around them was just a construction of ones and zeroes, pumped into their brains and interpreted into data they could understand. A program was determining those numbers and randomly selecting when and how they would trigger. It seemed real but it was all artificial.
“Another chamber,” Darin said over the telepathy link. “Looks like this one has high ceilings. And there's stalactites hanging from the ceiling too. Taji, move up-”
“Don't go in there yet,” Leah interrupted him. “Wait for me to move up to join you.”
“Do you have another plan?”
She didn't respond as she walked up to the front of the group and looked through the doorway. Sure enough there were stalactites and rock outcroppings hanging from the ceiling, a whole bunch of them. Leah didn't see any enemies inside, but she thought she knew why.
“What are you doing?” Taji asked as she drew an arrow out of her quiver.
“Testing something.”
Leah drew back her bow and fired into the midst of the ceiling, trying to stir something up. Sure enough, a winged golem dropped down from the ceiling and flew around for a few seconds before returning to its roost.
“Air golems,” Darin said.
“Air golems with a bunch of places to hide,” Leah corrected him. “This is going to make it really hard to fight them off. They'll swoop in and attack, then go back up into the rocks on the ceiling to hide. I can't aim like that, and the rest of you are only going to be able to hit them when they dive down.”
“We'll just have to be quick,” Erika said.
“Yeah, that sounds like way too much of a chance,” Leah said. She drew another arrow and nocked it.
“Don't want to go in and fight?” Darin commented.
“Yeah, screw that.”
Leah cast Force arrow and sent the projectile streaking toward the ceiling. A moment later the shockwave ripped through the hanging rock formations, destroying large chunks and sending others plummeting toward the cavern floor. Air golems scattered everywhere, some badly damaged and unable to fly. Others were smashed into the ground by the falling debris.
“Keep an eye out in case they try to come get me,” Leah said. She targeted one of the large rock columns and cast Crush on the next arrow. The impact pulverized the facing on one side like it was an aluminum can being crumpled up in a fist. The stone structure tilted to one side and fell, taking out several more stalactites with it.
“So you're just going to keep casting destruction spells until we clear them out?” Erika asked.
“Or at least until they have no cover,” Darin said. “Taji, keep an eye on the tunnel so something doesn't spawn and sneak up on us.”
Leah sighted in another arrow and cast Fire Blast on it. This time, with most of the cover on the ceiling destroyed, the explosion reached a long way. Dozens of air golems burst into flame and dropped to the bottom of the chamber like roman candles.
“Looks like that's enough for now,” she said. “You three can clean up.”
Darin nodded. “Taji, with me. Erika, follow behind and guard our backs. And Leah, if you could help that'd be good too. We still can't hit anything that's flying above us.”
“Huh, what makes you think that I can manage that? Trying to shoot things with D-rank skills is hard,” Leah replied. She nocked an arrow anyhow and followed them in.
An air golem swooped low and tried to make an attack with its talons. Leah brought her bow up to make a quick shot, but she never got the chance to even fire. Taji took a swipe with his axe and caught the monster square in the body, smashing it with one hard blow.
“I'm going up with them,” Erika said, just before she cast Sky Walk. She leaped onto the platforms and took out a pair of golems with precise strikes.
There were stragglers, but at this point the room was essentially cleared. A few random grunts weren't going to be enough to stop them.
Leah felt like she had taken the cheap route, but she didn't feel guilty about it at all. So far the Cave of Origin had been nothing but trouble, with no easy opponents for them to face. Hordes of tough monsters, traps, and they weren't even finished yet. If the golem theme held out they still had a set of water creatures to deal with. And after that…
After that they still had to face the worst challenge of the dungeon, the final bosses. Right now she had a feeling they'd end up facing one of the stronger teams.
The next corridor was far shorter than the other ones, and opened up into yet another chamber. Water flowed out of spouts embedded in the walls, forming a large pool on the cave floor. There was one narrow route across, meandering and weaving in all different directions. Leah looked down into the water to see how deep it might be, but the bottom wasn't visible.
“Sure looks like a lovely spot for an ambush,” Taji commented.
“Seems like it,” Darin said. “And it sure seems like we have the worst luck. There's no dodging this.”
“What about if I sky-walked over to the other side?” Erika asked.
“That'd be all well and good if we knew the room was safe, but it's not. I'm almost certain that there's water golems in here somewhere,” Taji said. “And then you're on the other side cut off from the rest of us.”
“Have to cross this place somehow,” Darin said.
Leah thought for a moment. “Well, we could be careful. Go slow and try to make sure we're well-guarded wherever we go.”
“Or?”
“Or we just run through and smash everything that gets in our way,” she said. “At this point I'm willing to risk it, because this is getting annoying.”
She knew very well that she was being impulsive. Right now they were almost all the way through the dungeon, and dying now meant starting over from the very beginning along with losing one of their precious chances to make the next tournament.
But being able to adapt and take calculated risks was one of the most important skills in the tournaments, especially in the higher divisions. Right now Leah thought this was worth taking the chance, because there was no guarantee that taking it slow would be any safer. At the rate things were going she half expected there to be a boss-class creature in here.
“It's a risk,” Darin said.
“Yeah. And I'm tired of waiting around. Let's go.”
She might have been the one advocating for patience on their journey up to the top, but even she had limits as to how much time she wanted to waste. Let this place try to stop them. They would smash their way through, just like they had dealt with the rest.
To her surprise the opposition in the water room was fairly light, consisting of only a few water golems that popped out of the pool and attacked. Darin and Taji had taken care of them in short order, so quickly that Leah hadn't even needed to draw her bow.
She supposed that she should have been thankful for the respite, but the change made her uneasy. Were they over the hump, so to speak, or was their final challenge going to be even more difficult?
“Here we are,” Darin said as they stood in front of the last hallway leading to the boss room.
A pair of doors blocked their path, made of blackene
d iron and decorated with all manner of symbols and sculptures. Swords, dragons, wolves, warriors, they all blended together and made for an intimidating sight. Leah felt her unease grow even more as she looked at them.
It wasn't the sight of the doors that gave her pause. She had seen them before, and they looked the same as always. No, it was what lay behind them, waiting for her team. Leah knew very well that the tough challenges they faced on the way here were nothing more than a prelude, a way to weed out the woefully unprepared teams. This was where the real test began, the one that separated the capable teams form everyone else. And despite facing down this challenge before, Leah still felt the nerves.
There were so many difference, so many little things that could go wrong. They had a team with two relatively new players. Taji at least had some experience in tournament style matches, but Erika was completely new. They had no idea what kind of team they'd be facing here either. Would they be standard? A team focused on ranged attacks, or one that used speed? Something else? There was no way to know until they opened the door.
But then, that was the way the tournaments worked. Teams had to submit their character builds in advance, but no one except the tournament committee knew that information until the match started. A team bringing a new configuration or strategy could spring it on the enemy and achieve the element of surprise before they knew what was happening. The Cave of Origin was no different.
She looked over at Darin. “Do we bother formulating a plan before we go in?”
“Since we don't even know what we're facing that's not going to help.” He turned to the others. “Just stick with the basics and don't take any risks until we know what we're up against. We'll come up with our plan of attack then.
Leah made one last check of her health and equipment. Good enough. Now it was time for them to put up or shut up.
“Ready?” Darin asked.
Everyone else nodded.
He pushed open the doors. “Let's go.”
They stepped into the final chamber. Leah noted that it looked the same as the last time she had been here. The entire room was made of cut stone instead of being carved out of the rock like the rest of the cave. Torches lit the area, but part of the wall on the other side of the chamber remained shrouded in darkness. That was where the enemy would appear from.
She tensed for a moment as the darkness suddenly lit up. New torches burned against the far wall, illuminating a quartet of banners. It took a moment for Leah to realize what kind of symbol was emblazoned on them.
It was a wolf, pitch-black and howling.
“Of course,” she heard Darin say in a resigned tone. “Of course we get the Black Wolves.”
Leah didn't have time to respond. Four shadowy figures seemed to appear out of thin air and charged toward them. She yanked an arrow out of her quiver and drew her bow back.
It was crunch time.
9
Darin was completely taken aback by the speed of his opponents. He had heard about the Black Wolves, but he had never actually encountered them inside the Cave of Origin. Neither had many others, and fewer still had managed to live through their encounter. Some god had it out for them, or they would have if this wasn't a virtual reality. In this case his team might just have the worst luck possible.
He brought his weapon around to parry, just as one of the shadowy figures charged at him. Darin barely managed to deflect the blow, and the force of the attack still rattled his weapon. The haft of his halberd vibrated violently, sending a shock through his hands and causing him to grit his teeth.
Another blur charged at him, this one far faster than the last. Darin tried to dodge again, but he couldn't get out of the way. The pair of daggers cut at him, deflecting off his armor but sending him stumbling backward. He whipped his weapon around in an arc, trying to score a hit or at least force the enemy to fall back, but cut nothing but air. His foe was already gone.
Darin activated the telepathy link. “We have a damage dealer with a longsword and medium armor, and a dual-wielding rogue with manipulation magic. It already used Flash Step on me.”
“There's an archer too. Looks like it's using support magic,” Leah said. “I-”
Her voice suddenly cut off, but Darin didn't have time to check. The rogue came back around for another attack, and again he had to deflect it off of his armor. He hadn't lost much health so far, but one of the attacks was going to find its mark and cause a critical hit.
“I'm casting Challenge Call now,” Taji said.
“Stay on the defensive. Don't open yourself up to attack,” Darin ordered. “And make sure you add on Stone Skin as well.”
“Got it.”
“Casting Pre-sight,” Darin told the others. He would have done it at the beginning of the battle, but the speed of the enemy attack had forced him to defend and spoiled his chance.
“Um, Darin?”
“Yeah?”
“I'm a little stuck right now,” Leah told him
He chanced a look over his shoulder. A pair of chains hung off her armor, connecting her to the ground and restricting her movement.
“Taji, Erika, keep an eye on the enemy and make sure they don't get near Leah,” he ordered.
Binding. The archer must have cast Bind on one of their arrows, and a fairly high-level one at that. Darin also had the power, but his was only made of rope. It was still useful if he could score a hit, but managing that would be difficult.
And the ropes weren't much against hordes of enemies or large foes, making them only effective against human-sized targets. That was all well and good, but Darin didn't think he could hit any of the Black Wolves with it. They were moving far too fast.
And they had only accounted for three of them. Under standard configuration they'd have a tank somewhere. Where was it? If he-
“Up!” Erika yelled out.
He saw the glow before anything else. Sky Walk. Something had just cast Sky Walk. And a split-second later another shadowy figure leaped down across the platforms, moving in a blur. This one had a longsword in its grasp, and Darin knew he wasn't going to get his weapon up in time to block. His armor might not hold up against a strike from a strong weapon like that either. If only-
Another series of platforms suddenly appeared in the air. Before he even knew what was happening another blur charged into the fray, forcing the other one to back off.
“So they have no tank and two rogues, along with an archer and damager,” Leah said. “That's going to be a problem.”
Darin looked around, trying to regain his bearings. Taji stood his ground, fending off attacks from the enemy damager with his shield. Leah still remained chained to the ground, and the enemy archer was nowhere to be seen. One rogue had retreated, the other was still on the platforms. Erika wasn't visible either, so she must have been the blur that saved him.
“What do you want to try?” Leah asked.
“Hold off on using destruction spells for a second. Let's know what we're aiming at first.”
“And then?”
“Try to keep the enemy off our backs,” Darin said. “Taji, I'm going to try to gang up on one of the enemies with you. Try to keep your guy in place.”
“Got it.”
Darin looked around, trying to determine the location of the second rogue. He didn't want to end up charging into a fight only to get stabbed in the back. There weren't many places for it to hide, but he couldn't spot his foe. Was it regrouping, or waiting for him to turn his back so it could strike? The AI for these opponents was far beyond anything else in the cave.
He had to take a chance, though, otherwise they'd be stuck in a stalemate. And with their most powerful attacker stuck in place they were at a huge disadvantage. Right now they had to focus on taking down at least one of the enemy. If they could just get it to a four on three fight a lot of different options opened up.
The attacker with the longsword would make a good target. It didn't have the specialized manipulation spells of the rogues, or t
he range of the archer, but it would be the easiest to kill and could still do a fair amount of damage if left alive.
Darin cast binding in his hand and held it for a moment, trying to decide when to fire his shot. Bind wasn't terribly accurate unless it was cast on a weapon or another projectile, and he didn't have anything he could use at range. There was also the danger of friendly fire. If he missed and hit Taji by mistake they'd have two players that were effectively immobilized.
That left him with only one choice. Darin gripped his weapon in his left hand and charged forward, hoping to cast the spell at close range. If he could just get within ten feet or so he'd have a point-blank shot. If only the-
Another blur suddenly appeared in front of him and struck. Darin didn't even have time to properly react before his foe had disappeared in the blink of an eye. He saw his health bar drop into the yellow in an instant.
But right now he was committed to the attack. He had to expend the last spell before he could cast healing, and he might as well make it count for something.
“Hold him in place,” he ordered Taji over the telepathy link, and sprang forward to close the final distance.
The enemy fighter started to turn and move away, but Taji caught it with a blow from his sword and sent it staggering. That second's worth of distraction was more than enough for him. Darin reached out and cast Bind. Ropes snaked around the enemy's limbs, anchoring them to the ground. They lashed out with their blade trying to cut free, but it made an opening.
“Take it out,” Darin said, and leaped in with a two-handed overhead strike. His chomp cut away one of the ropes, but it also left the enemy fighter with a massive gash running down one side.
Taji charged in as well, swinging his shield to bash out and stun the fighter further. Another sword stroke cut away more ropes and inflicted even more damage, though with Stone Skin active it wasn't a lot. Every little bit counted. Besides, it provided another distraction.
Darin whirled his weapon around and came back with another overhead strike, this time aiming for the enemy's skull with the halberd's back spike. He felt the impact, almost like a crunch, and then the resistance was suddenly gone. His target toppled over, stone dead.
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