“With the lifesblood of my comrades, I made the cavern into a dungeon, and bound both the Queen and myself to it, so that she would never be able to escape the dungeon, even if freed, and I would be able to guard against her escape, for all time.”
I nodded, as though accepting the facts, and then pointed with my katana at the cocoons. “And what of this?”
The Warden had the good grace to at least look ashamed as he said, “Alas, my plans were flawed, for I did not know that binding the Queen to the dungeon would allow her to influence its design. Any creature of the outside who falls in battle here is not slain outright, but consumed to become another of her soldiers. And yet, the blood spilled strengthens the seals upon her, and locks her soldiers in timeless slumber.”
“And why haven’t you just killed the bitch while she’s locked up, or at least destroyed these soldiers in their sleep?”
“Another flaw in my plan. I am bound to the dungeon, as she is. I cannot strike her down. And the spell of timelessness only works while the soldiers remain unharmed. Should one be attacked, they all will rise, to the doom of all!”
Ant Spirit Larvae
Level 20 Spirit / Warrior
I checked out the nearest cocoons. They were all the same, low-level creatures. In other words, no match for them individually, but all of them at once… that’d be difficult. Still, they could deal with that after the Warden was taken care of. Looking back to him, I said, “And I guess that, being bound to the dungeon, you’re not going to simply let us pass, huh?”
“Alas, I cannot. But defeat me, and the exit shall open for you.”
“Very well.” And with no further words, I lept at the elf, blades already in motion. He was stronger than I was faster than I was, but not by much. However, eating the rabbit’s egg had given me a huge boost in Strength, allowing me to push through and overpower his parries, even though my blades were ill suited to such a fighting style. This meant I could give as good as I got, even though he was a slightly higher level than I was. When the rest of our group joined in, there was no hope for him. Severa got the killing blow, her war fan actually managing to cut the Warden’s head off!
Guardian’s Helm of Despair
Type
Hat
Rank
Uncommon
This helmet is made from High Steel. This particular design has not seen common use since before the Scourge. Lore says that it fell out of favor when the Kingdom of Ankhular fell into ruin in the wake of the discovery of the Invae. Few copies of this style helmet remain today, though other designs carrying similar benefits are more common.
Requires: Level 60
Requires: Fighter class
+100 Defense
+30 CON, +20 DEX, +20 STR
Aura of Despair – Passive effect. When in defense of one the wearer is sworn to protect, Aura of Despair activates, spreading despair and hopelessness amongst enemies who have less WIS than the wearer’s CON. Counters Rage, Courage effects. Fear effects 3x as effective against affected creatures. Affected creatures move and attack 20% slower, and deal 20% less damage.
Vengeance, Rapier of Lost Hope
Type
Sword (Rapier)
Rank
Artifact
Damage
140 – 200
Damage Type
Piercing
This legendary weapon was created from a dragon’s fang, and was crafted in such a way that some of the dragon’s power remains within the blade. It was heavily enchanted after its forging by the master runesmiths of the Kingdom of Ankhular, turning the weapon into a powerful tool in the fight against the kingdom’s enemies. For eight hundred years, this blade was given to the Captain of the Royal Guards, passed down as a symbol of the office, and a sign of the King’s trust. The sword was lost during the Invae Incursion that toppled the Kingdom.
Requires: Level 60
Requires: Fighter class
Requires: Must have a sworn liege, or be the Thrall or Slave of creature at least level 70, or with higher CHA than wielder.
+1000 Attack
+50 DEX
+50% Attack speed
Vengeance – Passive. Add 50% of damage taken in the last 10 seconds to your attacks.
Lost Hope – When all hope seems lost, sometimes miracles happen. When brought under 25% of your HP while defending your sworn liege or master, you may cast a Greater Miracle by calling upon the power of your chosen deity. You are also healed to full health. Cooldown: 1 month.
Spirit Bane – After so long in the care of its last wielder, the blade has become attuned to damaging spirits. +50% damage dealt to spirits (stacks with Vengeance).
Enchanted: Sanguis Vitam – When you slay a sentient creature with this blade, gain +1000% to the next ritual or spell cast requiring blood or sacrifice within the next 24 hours. (Multiple killings do not stack.)
Cursed: Fealty – You cannot resist spells cast by your sworn liege or master. This weapon cannot be unequipped until your death, or your liege releases you from service.
Holy Sanguinarian’s Mithril Breastplate
Type
Chest
Rank
Rare
This mithril breastplate with an undershirt of mithril rings is a powerful defense for those who value the power of blood. The power of blood magic or sacrificial rituals is increased while you wear this armor. It also protects you from many unsavory effects.
Requires: Level 60
Requires: Good Alignment
+400 Defense
+50 CON
Immunity – Immune to Fear, Poison, Disease, and Death Effects
Bloodforged – Forged and quenched with blood, this armor increases the power of all blood magic or sacrificial rituals by 200%.
+50% to all resistances.
Enchanted: Heavy Fortification – 75% chance to negate bonus damage from Sneak Attacks and Critical Hits.
Dungeon Builder’s Guidebook
Type
Tool
Rank
Legendary
This guide allows the user to channel the magic of the Gods, creating a Dungeon. They have administrator privileges over this dungeon, and can either take an active hand in its growth, or allow it to grow according to its own devices. Dungeons may not be placed within 10 miles of an existing dungeon. Creating a dungeon requires a suitable vessel to be the dungeon core. If no suitable vessel is present, then one may be created if sufficient MP is spent.
Cost to create dungeon: 25000 MP
Cost to create core: 50000 MP
Finally, some quality loot! Sure, most of it wasn’t stuff my group could use, but it would go nicely in the guild vault, in case any of my guildies were able to use it. The Dungeon Builder’s Guidebook, though, was far more valuable. Thankfully, it wasn’t a one-shot item. But I wasn’t going to just jump into creating a dungeon, at least not until I knew I wasn’t going to get trapped in it, like the Warden was. Also, even if I had a core, that MP cost was five times my max MP. Guess that’s where the sacrifices came in. Used that to substitute for the missing MP. And since they were in hot pursuit, that meant they probably didn’t have a core. Just how many people died to make this dungeon happen?
When the warden fell, a big obsidian door appeared on the far side of the chamber, clearly showing us the way out. Most groups would go ahead and take the offered exit. After all, the horde of ants was too much for most groups, and the Queen was much higher level than we were. I didn’t have a nuke, but I wasn’t content to just turn my back on this and leave.
Looking at the rest of the group, I could see they would be all too happy to join in some pleasant burning the shit out of everything. I shifted into my Drake form. “Della, I want an ice wall, with you and Hrozne up there. You focus on heals, and Hrozne, blast the shit out of things. Yukiko, Severa, Kamla, stay on the ground, and bash anything that gets through the initial layers. Nithroel, aerial support. Heal if you have to, beat the hell out of things if it looks l
ike they are breaking through. Move where you’re needed. Kylana, I want walls of fire and hellfire, battlefield control, so we limit the number the people on the ground face at once. And I’ll fly around torching everything. Clear?” Everyone nodded.
Once we were set up, I kicked off the party, flying over the cocoons and breathing hellfire down upon them. The moment I started breathing on them, the cocoons nearest the blaze started cracking, as ant spirit soldiers began emerging. ‘Hatching’ boosted them to level 25, but that was not going to be enough. Like most insects, fire was not their friend. Kylana did her part, keeping them blocked off into groups of 50-100.
Some braved the fires (or were pushed through by their comrades) and were met with the weapons of Nithroel and those on the ground. But they were coming through in small groups, no more than four or five at a time, all injured by the flames (though Kylana’s conjured flames did not burn as fiercely as those of a flame sorceress or an elementalist). Easily managed by the girls.
I helped ease the pressure by targeting those closest to the flame walls, keeping them from organizing a solid push through the walls. The ants, leaderless and unable to use their favored tactic of swarming and overwhelming a group through sheer numbers, were soon brought down into smaller and smaller groups, now huddling against the back wall of the chamber, even as the chitinous cocoons burned around them.
Finally, it was done. The last of the vile swarm fell, burning with hellfire and pierced by Severa and Kamla’s arrows. But a sound told us that we were not yet finished.
With a screeching roar of rage, the Queen pulled against her chains, and they, being weakened by the deaths of the dungeon’s guardians, shattered, and fell to the ground.
I sighed. “Well, shit.”
Chapter 84 – Firewatch
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE!
OK, evil possessed whatever the fuck the queen is sounds pretty angry that we just torched… well, everything. Too bad I’m not in a mood to care about her feelings just yet.
“Yukiko, Nithroel, Kamla, and I will hold the bitch’s attention! The rest of you, this is no different from any other large boss fight we’ve been in. KILL THE BITCH!”
And then it was too late for more, as the Queen, moving faster than I would have expected her to given her size, was upon us. Yukiko and Kamla attacked the creature’s legs, while Nithroel used the mobility of her wings to attack the creature’s torso from above. Severa darted in, slashing at the creature, always moving to avoid counters. Della healed us whenever someone was hit too hard, and Hrozne laid on some impressive debuffs which weakened the Queen.
Kylana surprised me. For the first time, I saw what a Transmuter can do when they focus their attentions on the enemy’s body. The Queen’s exoskeleton would turn soft or brittle in some areas, or perhaps her joints would lock at an inopportune time. And she laid buffs on all our fighters, as well, making them grow in size and strength, so that they were hitting the Queen harder and faster than before.
And then there was me. Still in my drake form, Kylana placed that buff on me, and suddenly I was almost as large as the Queen herself. Roaring a challenge, I charged in, and my clawed hands grabbed the Queen’s two hands, crushing them in my grip. She made that screeching sound again, and attempted to cast a spell, but I breathed hellfire in her face, burning her terribly.
There’s a reason why overly large bosses aren’t used that much in VRMMOs. Sure, in the old school MMOs, it seemed like every boss was at least twice the size of the players, if not more. But when you’re playing on a computer screen, and all the characters are grouped up, then you needed a big target to prevent constantly losing track of the enemy in the scrum. But in VR, where everyone is controlling their own characters directly, that just makes your boss a bigger target, with bigger weak spots for rogues and other precision damage types to take advantage of.
In the old days, a boss fight would have all the melee types scrummed up against the boss, while ranged types hung back, never moving as they cycled through the ‘correct’ sequence of hotkey attacks, and so on. A boss fight was basically a 10-minute solid grind, maybe up to a whole hour if it was a particularly nasty raid. It was long, and frankly a bit boring unless you were really into that kind of thing.
In the VR era, however, boss fights were fast, brutal, and unpredictable. Most, regardless of level, were over within 5 minutes. A couple of our really nasty boss fights took almost 30 minutes, but they were ones we didn’t have any advantages over. Rule of thumb was that if your fight lasted more than 10 minutes and you hadn’t gotten the boss under half, you should run, because you were all going to wipe. That’s because bosses that were the same size as you found it easier to attack YOUR weaknesses.
The fight with the Queen lasted 20 minutes, once I locked down her arms and kept her from casting spells. We discovered quickly that spirits, like some other types of creatures, didn’t have weak points to crit on, so we had to grind down her HP the hard way. But the buffs and debuffs made it so we could grind through, and I kept the Queen from unleashing her powerful attacks.
It wasn’t my preferred choice of tactics, but if playing kaiju works, it works. And in the end, hellfire and enchanted steel brought down the ugliest ant I’ve ever seen.
For defeating a Queen Spirit, you have gained the following Perk:
Firewatch
Originally an order of Knights Errant from the kingdom of Ares Mac’ro Tek, on the command of their king, Damian Knight, the Order of the Firewatch was formed to combat the original Invae threats, before the Scourge. As the Invae threat spread, the Order took in all who had the will to fight, no matter their race or their crimes. If you were willing to stand between the Invae and the innocents they took as hosts, then they would see you trained to kill as many as you could before death claimed you.
+10% damage to Invae (after all other effects)
-10% damage received from Invae (after all other effects)
So, a perk and a loredump, huh? Interesting that there was once an order of knights hunting creatures like that. But the loredump hinted that it came with a rather short life expectancy. That was probably a given, since the damn things were really tough to put down unless you had fire on your side. Well, you could probably find weapons that were enchanted specifically against Invae, but those would be rare as hell, in this time, if any still survived.
Grimoire of the Ant
Type
Tool
Rank
Rare
Not a tool for the faint of heart. This tome contains the secrets of summoning the Invae, specifically the breed that appears in our world as Ant-like creatures. To walk this path is a sure road to madness and self-destruction, but there are always those who will take up the mantle of an Ant Summoner, whether out of desperation or spite. Reading this grimoire conveys power and madness. Be warned.
Upon reading:
+1000 INT, -1000 WIS, CHA set to 1
Lose current subclass (if any), and replace it with Ant Shaman.
+10000 Infamy
Your body counts as a prepared vessel for a summoned Ant Spirit.
Insectile Cleaver
Type
Greataxe
Rank
Artifact
Damage
140 – 400
Damage Type
Slashing
This deadly double-bladed axe was made from the mandibles of a Queen Ant Spirit, infused with magic, and inlaid with Mithril, bound to an Adamantine haft. It can only be wielded by one who has faced the Invae in combat, for above all it hungers for the essence of the Invae.
Requires: 100 STR
Requires: Must have faced the Invae (any species) in combat before.
+100 STR, +100 CON, +100 DEX
+200 to all stats when facing Invae
3x damage against Invae
Insect-calling – All Invae and insect-type monsters or magical beasts within 20 miles are drawn to your location.
Insect Foe – All Invae and insect-type
monsters or magical beasts attack you on sight.
Invae Fury – Go into a rage, further increasing all stats by 100% for 10 minutes when facing Invae, but taking -50% to Defense. After duration, suffer Exhaustion and -25% to all stats for 1 hour. Can be used 3/day.
Cursed: Deathbound – Once wielded, this weapon cannot be discarded, sold, or traded while the wielder lives. When equipped, it cannot be unequipped until it is used to strike the killing blow on an Invae.
Signet of Ares
Type
Ring
Rank
Unique
This ring was worn by the last King of Ares Mac’ro Tek, Damian Knight, and was his personal signet ring, and sign of his power. Though it contains little of its former glory, one might yet find someone who knows a use for it.
+20 INT, +20 WIS, +20 CHA, +20 Luck
Quest Item
Soulbound Codex
Type
Book
Rank
Unique Artifact
This curious book appears to be undamaged, if rather old, and its pages are completely blank. The book is clearly magical, and cannot be damaged by normal means. Beyond that, its purpose is unknown.
Rules-Free VRMMO Life: Volume VII: The Tribeslands Page 8
