by Arthur Stone
“Negative effect received: The Curse of Trathkazir. All your primary stats are reduced by 18. Spellcasting speed is cut in half. You move two times slower, and lose mana and Vigor points faster.” Ros cursed, but didn’t dispel himself—the centipede needed it more. The boss paralyzed it halfway to his execrable self. Once dispelled, the pet vigorously attacked the monster the second it could move again. However, the adversary decided to punish the centipede’s “medic” and hit Ros with an attack spell. It was a direct hit, taking off about a quarter of Ros’ HP just as he was struck with Chaos Aura that shaved one tenth of his own HP instantly.
As Trathkazir turned to finally engage the pet, Ros dispelled and healed himself, and then did the same for the centipede—the boss had hit it with some nasty debuff that was draining a substantial amount of health.
As time kept ticking away, Trathkazir’s health kept on waning, albeit slowly. The pet stayed at or above 80 percent due to near-constant healing. The leprus may have been quicker, but it took a lot more damage, too. With his present pet, Ros hardly felt endangered at all.
Once the boss’ HP bar dropped to half, things got a little more hairy as Trathkazir switched to area-of-effect spells. Those had a wide range, often reaching Ros despite his best efforts to get out of the way. And they hurt quite a bit, taking off up to a third of his total HP, which was anything but meager. Worst of all, the pet was getting debuffed virtually all the time now—the centipede would get lit up like a torch, and start losing health at an alarming rate, forcing Ros to do nothing but cast heals and dispels on the pet, and resort to elixirs to keep himself up. They cost a lot and had a one-minute cooldown, but even they weren’t enough to keep his HP at full.
By the end, the boss went berserk. No longer hitting the “healer,” thankfully, he instead started to cast an AoE Sleep spell without warning. The pet would wake up right after the first attack, but Ros had to spend twenty or thirty seconds indisposed more than once. And each time, he would have to cast frantic heals on the centipede, snatching his pet from the jaws of death in the nick of time.
When the boss had but a few HP left, he cast The Curse of Trathkazir yet again. This time, it took Ros three attempts to dispel it—the skill wasn’t high enough for this powerful a debuff.
A minute later, Trathkazir lost the rest of his health, and his carcass tumbled to the ground, making the stalactites tremble menacingly.
“You kill Trathkazir the Second, Viceroy of Chaos. XP received: 189,316. You gain a level. Points left until the next level: 138,912. Your Agility grows by 1. Current value: 34. Your Mental Power grows by 2. Current value: 52. Your Summoning grows by 1. Current value: 25. “Your Summoning stat reaches 25: your spells for healing, buffing, and summoning pets will require 45% less magic energy, and you will be able to cast them 24% faster.” Your pet becomes 15% more intelligent. Congratulations! Your Summoning stat has reached 25! You receive a spellbook of your pet’s abilities. You receive a unique ability of the rrokh race: Steal Essence. The use of this skill gives you a 5% chance of stealing one of your target’s skills for your pet’s spellbook. Current number of pages: 5. Attention! Steal Essence cannot be used on players or NPCs! The stolen skill can be learned by the summoned creature, getting recorded in the pet’s spellbook. Attention! You kill Trathkazir the Second, Viceroy of Chaos, with a small party! Every member of your party receives one unassigned primary stat point. Congratulations! Your party has destroyed a named monster ninety or more levels above the party’s strongest player! Achievement earned: Desperados. Achievement bonus: +135 HP. Bonus effect: permanent.”
“They didn’t give us much this time,” Ros sighed. “I became world-famous the first time. I couldn’t even finish reading the system messages—I just zonked out.”
“I got seven Intellect points!” proclaimed Digits, overjoyed. “Three Mental Power points, too. And a wagonload of XP!”
“I didn’t get any bonuses to Intellect at all, regardless of all the mana I’ve spent.”
“Duh, yours is so high you’d need to waste two such grasshoppers at least before it grows by a single measly point. You should have reset it when we got here.”
“The cooldown time for the skill is one week.”
“Yeah, I remember. You did cast Soul Trap on the boss, though, right?”
“Three times, to be sure.”
“That’s diligent…”
“Such critters drop elite crystals—I’d hate to let one slip through my fingers.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Go get the boss—let’s see what goodies he’s got for us.”
* * *
“An elite soul crystal, a dagger, and a scrap of paper.”
“Hm… Not too rich. What kind of dagger?”
“Legendary Thyrenium Dagger of the Northern Mageslayer. Item class: legendary. Properties: merging; hard to lose; cannot be stolen; lower chance of disappearance after death; restores durability automatically. Melee weapon. Physical damage: 100-143 (cutting and stabbing). Special bonus: damage dealt to the target is augmented by half the amount of the target’s Intellect points. In case of an attack from stealth mode, the damage dealt to the target is augmented by three quarters the amount of the target’s Intellect points. Restores HP with every attack (points restored equal 50% of the target’s Mental Power plus 10). The calculated Intellect and Mental Power values account for the target’s equipment bonuses. Additional stats: +15 to Strength, +75 to Agility, +10 to Resilience, +15 to Accuracy, +15 to Attack, +12% to physical attack speed, elemental damage suffered reduced by 14%. The wearer has an 8% chance of paralyzing the target for 2.5 seconds. The item can be subjected to up to four stackable enchantments. Requirements: Level 129. Weight: 0.71 kg. Durability: 1007/1100. Attention: with two or more of the Northern Mageslayer’s items in the inventory, the wearer receives a bonus: +3% to physical attack speed, +5 to Resilience. Every additional Northern Mageslayer’s item raises the total bonus by the same amount.”
“A legendary item?!”
“As I live and breathe. I should browse the forum and see what they may have on it.”
“Do a name search.”
Ros resurfaced after a few minutes.
“Here’s the lowdown: such daggers are mentioned on the forum, but none have been sold yet. They did sell a Bracelet of the Northern Mageslayer about two weeks ago, though. Also a legendary item, sold for seventy-two thousand, if the auction records are correct.”
“In dollars?”
“In gold, actually. Sold by an anonymous player at the auction.”
“A bracelet is an accessory. A weapon should cost a lot more. I would assume it could fetch around a hundred thousand gold pieces.”
“Who even has that kind of money to burn?”
“Uh, have you looked at the stats? This dagger is ideal for wasting mages. Even lower-level ones can have around three or four thousand Intellect points. Imagine an assassin with high stealth. They could sneak up on a mage, release their Fury without leaving stealth, and then drive the blade into the poor bastard’s back. Attacks from behind give bonuses to damage and crit chance. The dagger also gives you a bonus based on the target’s Intellect and your stealth. A top rogue or assassin will take off at least a third of a mage’s HP with the very first hit—maybe even half. That is, if a mage himself isn’t level 200 plus and completely wrapped up in set and legendary gear. But that’s just the damage from a simple physical attack. A high-level skill will do much more damage. It will only take a second or two for the mage’s lifeless body to fall onto the ground, and the killer can slip back into stealth mode before the mage’s allies even realize what happened. In serious skirmishes, with one large group of players fighting another, mages are the worst, and need to be vanquished first. Do you think any clan would turn away a player who can waste any top mage alone at such speed, guaranteed? A hundred grand seems reasonable enough. Well, even eighty or ninety would do.”
“What’s with releasing their Fury?”
“It�
��s a skill called Release Fury, you can learn it at any Warriors’ Guild for money or after completing a long and tedious quest. It is available to any compatible class. Expensive, for sure, but worth the money, so you might want to learn it. Basically, you can use up some of your Fury—you choose how much exactly. The more you use, the better the effect. Lasts longer, too.”
“What effect?”
“It gives you a bonus to physical and magic attacks, speeds up your spells and physical attacks, seriously beefs up your resistance to controlling skills, and also gives a small bonus to your armor class. Although, ‘small’ is a relative term here. If you have enough Fury and you use it all up, the bonus will be pretty good.”
“Sounds cool…”
“Yeah, so learn it when you can, and go wild. It can be leveled up, too. Anyway, we have digressed. The boss dropped only one item—and I’d been thinking that your Luck would provide for better loot… A single item doesn’t seem like much.”
“Well, there’s also this scrap of paper.”
“What scrap of paper?”
“No idea. It looks like a map, and I can’t make heads or tails of what it says.”
“Gimme.”
Digits studied the trophy for about a minute, and then shook his head.
“I can’t even say if we’re in luck or not.”
“Come again?”
“Do you know what this is?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
“You find such scraps of paper in dungeons, but it doesn’t happen often, as far as I understand. This is indeed a map—and, also, the key to a lair.”
“What kind of lair?”
“Do you know anything at all about lairs of different types?”
“Not much.”
“What a deplorable noob!”
“What else is new…”
“So, a Chaos spawn lair is a special type of dungeon. They seem to appear from a wormhole and then hide in some normal area. Usually underground, but they can also hide in ravines, ruins in the desert, on islands, and so on. The thing is, you can pass right by them without noticing anything. You might be in luck if you have a bunch of special skills leveled up, but even then the chance of finding a lair is minuscule—you don’t encounter many of them, and their locations are usually remote. But if you have a map, you can find one easily, even if you’re a level zero noob. Once the lair has been cleared, the monsters don’t reappear, so it’s a one-off thing. Most often, there are no resources to be found there, either. Also, once the last of the Chaos spawn is vanquished, you have to make tracks on the double, since the whole thing is likely to come crashing down, drown, or go up in a blaze. Anyway, it’s inadvisable to linger.”
“Got it. What about the mobs? Is it lucrative to hunt them?”
“You can get up to ten grand in gold for a scrap of paper like this. So, what do you think—are they lucrative or not?”
“But why would we sell it if we can clear the dungeon ourselves?”
“It’s not as easy as that. The ratio is as follows: the mobs and the bosses in the lair are about one-quarter stronger than those in the dungeon where the map was found. Do you think we can handle them?”
“Not sure. This dungeon was easy enough, but the boss had a few rather unpleasant surprises in stock.”
“Those bosses can surprise you so much you’ll find yourself respawned in your long johns in a jiffy. All right, I’ll go offline and ponder this some more. You check out the hall—there can be secret caches here. Also, take a look at the walls—the most valuable gems are usually found next to the boss.”
Chapter 4
The next morning Digits found Ros laboring away, tapping at a gem geode. He decided not to interfere, sat down nearby, and started reporting on the result of his strategic ruminations.
“First of all, I have managed to identify the area via a special fan site feature. The map represents a section of the Ardenian Woods. The name is clearly a reference to the Ardennes, so it’s the Western European sector. They put them in every book, game, and movie they make over there. It’s the usual scenario—the region isn’t particularly popular, but it’s not hard to get there if you have legs. You’ll have to go on your own, though.”
Ros caught a gem that fell from the geode and asked:
“Why is that?”
“Ugh, do you think I’d asked you all those questions for nothing? Your story really got to me, and I remembered well the fact that all those achievements were showered upon you once you cleared out a dungeon all on your own. I must also point out that it was the first time the dungeon got cleared—no one had ever visited it before. I browsed the forum, and there were no mentions of heroes managing to destroy all Chaos spawn in a Chaos wormhole, including the boss—or several bosses. You were the first. The same goes for scroll-access lairs. Why not become a trailblazer here as well? If we go together, there won’t be any major achievements. Thus, is there any point to sacrifice so much to power-level a noob like me? It would be easier to hire professional power-levels. Whereas you can score a bundle of goodies for the achievement, and both of us will reap the benefits. Just think about it.”
“Even if it’s true, Digits, I’m not sure I’ll manage. Didn’t you tell me yourself that the mobs and the bosses are a lot tougher there?”
“I did. But I have already given it some thought. There’s a team that power-levels noobs not that far from the lair. They charge an arm and a leg, but their reputation is spotless. And the best part is that they power-level you on level 200-280 mobs.”
“They do sound like pros…”
“Exactly. So, do you see what I suggest we do?”
“I think so. We spend a day or two leveling with them, and I get a bunch of soul crystals from high-level mobs. Then I clear out the lar.”
“Exactly. Besides, leveling a bit before something like that would do you good. You can also equip yourself correspondingly, which will make you even stronger.”
“Once I clear out the lair, they’ll announce it to absolutely everyone in red lettering, and I’ll have to think of something yet again.”
“It won’t be a first for you. I also don’t think you’ll attract as much attention as the previous time—there are likely to be fewer achievements this time. You have already skimmed the cream off the top. You might also want to time it so as to change all your data at once. And you should keep the new identity incognito. This one’s gained some notoriety around here, and this is a dungeon you can clear time and again until somebody else finds it and passes the information on to the top clans. Ros, understand this: a heroic achievement is very cool and very useful. The more you have, the better the bonuses get. Both of us are interested in you having as many as possible. What if you get undistributed auxiliary stat points? We seem to have agreed on investing them all into Enchanting. If you beef it up quickly, we’ll save a ton on grinding the skill. It hasn’t been unlocked yet, has it?”
“Nope. I have broken every cheap enchanted item that we found here, but there’s nothing yet.”
“That sucks. How about breaking some of the better ones dropped by the local mages? You should get more XP for those.”
“No, we’ll be better off selling them.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“I’d also like to find some mobs who have the Strangle skill and then use Steal Essence on them until I learn it.”
“Steal Essence?”
“I forgot to mention it—I leveled Summoning to 25, and got some new perks. Now there’s a minor chance of learning one of the slain opponent’s skills. A high-level pet makes mobs drop less stuff, and also damages some of the items. I believe this is why I’m getting fewer trophies this time despite my Luck being higher. The Strangle skill makes the pet damage fewer items that the mobs drop. The trick is using it in a timely fashion, and not when the enemy is down to the last few HP.”
“Got it. You have to hunt some non-venomous snakes. Your best bet would be to find a lake or a swamp
with a large grass snake population. Even the moat around the city has them—I used to encounter twenty or thirty every hour. They should have this skill—after all, they’re non-venomous. Although I’m not quite certain, I’d have to check.”
“I’d rather you grabbed your pickaxe and checked the rest of the tunnel that led here. Let’s finish mining and beat it—nothing else to do here.”
“What about the caches?”
“I’ve already checked everything while you were sleeping and browsing the forums.”
“So?”
“A few nice trinkets we can sell, a bag of black opals of excellent quality, and a really interesting ring.
“Auritium Ring of Solitude from the Viceroy of Chaos set. Properties: set item, restores durability automatically. If a player has three or more items from the Viceroy of Chaos set, either equipped or carried in non-active inventory, they are impossible to lose and cannot be stolen. Stats: +19 to Intellect, +12 to Mental Power, +9 to Stamina, +5 to Perception, + 75 to Fury. The item can be subjected to up to three stackable enchantments. The ring is adorned with five rhinestones that can be replaced with gems. Weight: 0,01. Requirements: Level 47. Durability: 900/900. The full Viceroy of Chaos set includes: Mountain Silk Cuirass, Chameleon Cape, Glass Thread Boots, Snake Bracelet, Ring of Solitude, and Chaos Hound Collar. Full set bonus: full merging, +50% resistance to the element of Light; 9% chance to stun the target for 3-8 seconds with a ranged attack; 12% reduction to incoming magic and physical damage; 6% probability of blinding the enemy for 6-11 seconds after it executes a ranged attack; upon receiving damage, a shield is cast automatically that lasts 3 minutes and absorbs up to 1750 damage with a cooldown of 120 seconds; while the shield is active, the wearer cannot be stunned, blinded, or put to sleep; the weight of equipped items is reduced by 25%; +7 to primary and +2 to secondary base stats.”
