My stats were so much higher, especially my attack, due to the weapons, that I almost peed myself. The one thing I noticed was that immunity to poison was gone now that the set bonus for six items was gone. Instead, a 50% poison resistance had replaced the previous bonus.
Beside the steep rise in stats, I’d gained three new skills and was about to get a forth very soon.
Savage Frenzy, Vampiric Regen and Bat Swarm. I had to be honest, getting new skills and being able to come up with more tactics was the thrilling part, and I was thrilled to say the least.
There wasn’t much more for me to do, except to assign skills and combos, double check stats and all the items in my inventory. Then I saw the three mystery items that had dropped in the hellish dungeon. There was no way for me to read their properties, name or general info.
"What are these?" I asked, hoping Sylvia was still around. She chuckled and appeared behind me.
"Craft ingredients. It’s something along the line of a key that allows you to enter a dungeon. A very dangerous and high level dungeon, to be more precise. Reason why they dropped for you, is because of your low level. If you’d done this quest at level hundred plus, they would have never dropped."
I turned to her and scowled.
"So you’re basically telling me to jump in more of those portals and endure god knows what, just to get three crafting ingredients I have no idea how to use?"
"If you look at it like that, yes."
"Fucking hell," I cursed and was about throw a tantrum when she leaned in and kissed me. "W-what are you doing?"
She hushed me and pressed her lips against mine once more. Her breath had the scent of spring flowers, while her lips tasted like honey, sweet and succulent.
"I’ll give you the world, if you become mine," she whispered seductively. "I could force you, but what was the fun in that?"
At the very least, I did NOT want to mess with her, as she could turn our lives into living hell, yet ‘becoming hers’ wasn’t quite an option.
"Umm, can I propose something?"
She pulled away and narrowed her eyes on mine.
"Really? That’s your answer?"
"No, well, not quite. How about this… We are short a player for the clan tournament, no? How about you become that eighth player. Create an avatar, let it grind all night and tomorrow you’re already around our level. Or just create it at 39 or whatever. Then, you save the day and help us win the tournament, and in turn, I will offer you to become one of our clan. We can take it from there."
"Hmpf! I’m a god, why would I choose the harder path?"
My mind raced. How did you convince a being all powerful to do something they didn’t feel like? Then I had it, or I thought so at least.
"That way you can learn to feel. Isn’t that what you want?"
She looked away and put a loose strand behind her ear, made a strange gesture and looked back at me. I was startled by the waving of her hands, but it was cute in a sense. If an AI Overmind can be cute, that is.
"Very well. But if they decline me, I’ll make their lives miserable. Just so you know."
"Wait, whose lives?"
"You know. Scarlet, Katya and Renee. Larina is an AI anyway, so she won’t be causing a fuss."
"No, that’s not part of the deal!"
"Everything I say is part of it! And I say, that whenever I want to have you for myself, they better be fine with it!"
"Oh dear lord. Why can’t I have just a normal life like everyone else?"
"Because you’re not normal. I’m your goddess, not whoever it was outside. You’re in my world now, Aiden."
I looked away and tried to think very carefully on how to proceed. Anything I said could be taken the wrong way, so I needed to double check.
"All right. This is the furthest I’m willing to bend over for you. Put us in a very bad situation during the tournament. You then promise us a win, in exchange for me to be your man. As in live with us in the castle, and be part of my merry group of… deaders. Then you can say Sylvia sent you and that you’re a deader as well, and stuff. Join us on your own created adventures and so on. Think you could live with that?"
Sylvia shrugged.
"We’ll see. Anyway, what do you plan to do with the players waiting on you outside?"
I groaned, having forgotten about the gathered crowd. I rather not face them at all. There would be more than enough PVP during the tournament.
"I think that sitting it out for twelve hours would be a great way to solve the problem. There’s still some things I need to take care off. Besides, studying PVP before the tournament should be a priority as well."
"Bah! So lame," she snapped. "And there I thought you were the once famed number one Vampire."
I stared at her with a blank expression on my face.
"Obviously, I’m not. Besides, I still need information on how to create this key from the three items that dropped earlier."
"All in due time. There’s no need to rush things, as you’re light years away from even reaching the spot. What I can do, is give you a hint on where to get another of those fine Greek God items. Interested?"
I perked up at the offer. Hell yeah I was. If they were any good, I’d bend over sideways to get my hands on another one of those.
"Yeah, sure. It couldn’t harm to get another one," I said, feigning only mild interest. I didn’t want her to think she could steer me wherever she’d like.
"I see. All right then. But first, I want a little demonstration what you’re made of. Call the rest over here and fight the crowd. If you manage to fight them off for five minutes, or kill fifty of them, I’ll teleport you straight back to Paradise Lost. Deal?"
26
"Are you ladies up?" I asked in group chat.
"Yeah. Should we come over?" Katya replied. "We’re ready as can be."
I sighed and cracked my neck, shoulders and fingers.
"Sure. I’ll tell you everything once you guys are here."
In seconds, more bright lights shone in the plaza outside of the clan building. I peeked out and a grin crawled up my face. Dineth was damn impressive, no matter how many times I saw him.
The crowd turned against them, but no one made a move, seeing no use in attacking clan-less players. He plowed a way through them and they made their way into the building, fully buffed and armed for war.
"Good to see you guys here," I said and hugged Katya and Scarlet, then Renee and Larina. It was awkward, but what could I do? Neglect some of them? Never going to happen.
"Same. So what’s the plan?"Dineth asked as he put his large, meaty hand on my shoulder. It was heavy and forced me upright.
"You’re a beast. Even your hand is a force of nature," I joked and took a jab at him. He laughed and swatted me aside like a bug. I sighed and got back to it. "Accept the clan invitations and we’ll see what I came up with." Which isn’t all that much, I murmured to myself.
One by one, they accepted the clan invitations, starting with Scarlet, and ending with Larina. Seven of us stood there in the clan hall with the tag Eclipse above our names. It started coming back again, the feeling of belonging and anticipation of greatness. Yes, it made my blood boil.
"Welcome to the clan, newbies!" I said in clan chat, testing it out for the first time.
"LF Raid. Lvl 39 Ranger," Katya wrote back. I burst out in laughter, remembering the hectic days of raids, grinds and farming in clan groups.
"Hell, this sure brings back a lot of memories. Luckily, mostly good," I said again and observed my people. Yes, my people. I loved them in my own way, every one of them.
"Yeah, yeah. We can get drunk later. Did we come here to reminisce? Or to kick some ass!" Dineth growled and slammed his ax against the tower shield.
"First buff up and then we take the world by storm!"
Five minutes later, we stood at the doorway, staring down a fairly numerous mob of players. The biggest problems we had come up were that they would either try to nuke me, all of us, or so
mething in between the two. We did have something going for us though, and that was when they saw that we were only a bunch of lowbies. Around a good half of the players cursed and grumbled around that they had to wait for such a long time only to see a level thirty nine being the leader. Just what could he have that was worth anything at all?
So what we ended up with, were about a hundred players ranging anywhere from level twenty, all the way up to fifty. I sighed and shrugged. It was better than what we’d been facing earlier by an order of magnitude. So we got busy staring them down. One thing I noticed though, was that we were all level thirty nine. Had Sylvia done that on purpose? I didn’t know, but something told me she had.
"All right then, my clansmen, and women," I added hurriedly, "I say we try to kill as many as we can, then you guys warp out. No need to risk it."
"What are we risking, exactly?" Scarlet asked, her hand on her hips.
"Umm, pride?"
"Fuck pride! We stand with our man. Oh, and with that green big guy. Let’s have some fun!" Katya said.
"Let’s have at it then!" I smirked and imagined a world of pain on the opponent’s faces. Yes, it was going to hurt.
Dineth rushed into the crowd, smack dab in the middle of them, and slammed his shield into the ground before anyone could react. An interesting skill to say the least. From what I could tell, it was a CC skill that stunned anyone in an AoE around him.
"Neat," I chuckled and ran after him, then stopped. Three arrows shot over my head and exploded in the air, right above Dineth.
"Get out of there!" Katya yelled and proceeded to laugh like a madman, or madwoman in this case. Dineth didn’t need to be told twice, but just as he backtracked, another tank rammed him and stunned him in place. He was at the edge of the affected area, but there would be damage.
Dineth turned to the tank and brought up his shield, just as a torrent of rain, thunder and lightning unleashed from above. Renee stepped up on the battlefield and cast her own hurricane, then a pillar of flame. A blazing inferno took over just as Katya’s storm dissipated.
More arrows struck the group and vines sprung up from beneath their feet, entangling them in place. Then, all hell broke loose. I rushed in and slashed at a priest that just raised his hands to the sky. No healing for you, I thought and ended him. Blood splattered nearby players and burned them like liquid fire. In my system log, I noticed a new type of message.
You have inflicted 4.992 damage on Brunofilius: You have inflicted 743 splash damage on Alex991.
You have inflicted 661 splash damage on GodAwfulTomatoes.
The list went on for a while. For a moment, I was lost in the sheer magnitude of what’d just happened. I could PVP against groups now. I grinned and lunged back, then unleashed my bat swarm. Countless blood-bats appeared out of thin air and swarmed the group I’d just attacked with Brunofilius’s blood and caused havoc. The damage by itself wasn’t anything to write home about, but they were basically a wall, and kept the enemy off me for a few long seconds.
Shivers ran down my spine and I shuddered, then growled like I was about to feast on them.
"Whoa, he’s in beast mode," Scarlet laughed and threw a heal Dineth’s way. Monica stood beside her and was rebuffing everyone constantly, almost at the same speed with which the enemy was cleansing us. But to my surprise, Larina was nowhere to be seen. Her health bar kept going up and down, which meant she was battling, but where?
A bright light shot up into the heavens, and looked an awful lot like the skill with which the fake King Arthur had killed me with. A line of scorched, dead bodies was all that remained, and then, Larina’s health bar dropped to zero.
"What the hell was that just now?" I asked and dodged a spear jab.
"I don’t think you want to know just yet," Renee replied as she shot two thunderbolts from her hands. They struck the spear wielding Human fighter and killed him.
I looked at her and then back at the fighter.
"Neat. You’re quite the powerhouse," I said and activated my self buffs, found a group of support classes and charged them. "But what was that about not wanting to know?"
Chuckles echoed out in the group chat followed by full blown laughter.
"She’s a fucking dragoon," Katya said after she caught her breath. I stopped midway during my combo with my mouth wide open.
"What?" I yelled and was sent flying as a viking struck me with his battle hammer. A good fifteen percent of my health evaporated from the blow, but I was out of the thick of it.
Dineth slammed his shield against the ground again and rushed back, barely at five percent. Monica and Scarlet focused on his health bar, but his massive pool of health was far from filled up. He came barely up to a quarter of his health. I sighed and looked at the crowd. We had killed a bunch, but there were still many more left, and new ones teleporting in from what I could see.
"What now?" Renee asked and sent a flame pillar up among the center of the crowd. Screams of pain and agony made me grin.
"No idea. We go out in a blaze of glory!" I roared and darted in again, used buff potions and ripped into the tank that had tackled Dineth. It was a stupid idea, but I didn’t care and activated my combo. Two critical hits brought him down to zero percent. Lucky me, I thought and filed it away for later. I needed to up my critical hit percentage over everything else.
Screams from behind drew my attention, and I froze when I saw a high level player ram his sword through Katya’s chest. She shuddered, froze and dropped to the ground, then evaporated. The name above his avatar was GodLike, a level 109 Dwarf with a sword in one hand, and a small battle ax in the other.
Dineth charged him, stunned the much smaller player and changed into attack mode. GodLike stood there and enjoyed the beating as his health slowly faded, at a one to two percent per strike. He turned his back on Dineth, walked over to Scarlet and Monica, then killed off the women with two slashes.
"Renee, get out of there!" I yelled and hurled myself at him. My claws struck home from behind and, to my luck, were critical hits, both of them. One slowed him down, and the other cracked his defense in half. I had five seconds to try and do something, or he’d kill us all off. I bit down on his neck and drained his health, filling my own to a maximum, then slashed three times across his side and back. His ax swung toward my head, but he was much too slow.
"Two seconds left. He’ll kill us both once his debuffs are gone," Dineth said as he hacked into the heavily armored and armed Dwarf. He was down to a third of health when his ax struck Dineth in the chest and he crumpled to the floor.
"Shit," I cursed and jumped back from his reach. "Renee, you alive?" I asked, not daring to spare a glance at her.
"Yeah, barely," she replied and appeared beside me.
"I got an idea. Follow me into the center and once that bastard is on us, cast Maelstrom."
"Hahaha-- no what? You want me to kill us both?"
"Why not? Sylvia never said you couldn’t."
Renee laughed again but followed me into the center. I hurled myself at whoever was in the way and killed a few more of the weaker players, allowing Renee to follow me. But there he was again, that cursed Dwarf. He was much faster than it should be possible for someone with such short legs and long beard, but whatever.
"Ready?"
"Yeah," she replied and let go with another pillar of fire and gave us a few more seconds. The Dwarf charged in and struck against my claw. I deflected but fell backward and stumbled over a corpse. Renee shrieked as an arrow struck her in the shoulder, put up both hands and launched her ultimate skill, Maelstrom.
27
I’ll be honest here and say that I’ve never felt so much pain in my life before now. I didn’t remember the torture sessions by Melinoe so well, which in itself was a good thing. But the pain Maelstrom had caused was undeniable. The high speed winds had shred me apart, the lightning scorched me, and the fire ended up burning me to cinders. The ice crushed my remains in the end by slamming large chunks on top of me
, and all in all, sent me to re-spawn.
"Shit man, that sucked, badly," I said as I opened my eyes. I stood in front of our house, Paradise Lost, where my clannies awaited me in all kinds of poses. Katya and Scarlet lay atop each other, while Renee sat beside them on a bench, her legs crossed. Larina sat to her side and read what looked like a magazine. Monica and Dineth were getting it on in the water.
"Yeah, tell me about it. That nasty little shit appeared out of nowhere and stabbed me!" Katya cursed. She was right about one thing at least, that little dwarf was a bastard. First, for going against much lower level opponents, secondly, for targeting our supports first, and thirdly, his pure and overwhelming self-assurance he was going to kill us.
"Please tell me that you killed that bastard," I pleaded on my knees in front of Renee and put my hands on her legs. She spread them apart at my cold touch and I got a shot at what was underneath her skirt, or the lack there off.
"Hey!" Scarlet yelled and threw a rock my way.
"Fuck! Do you really need to hurt me whenever something unexpected happens?" I yelled back and threw a handful of sand their way.
"Oh you nasty little shit!" Katya added and got up, tackled me, and rubbed her naked ass against my chest. I stared at her with a blank expression on my face and thought how best to use this situation to my advantage.
"Anyone else care to join in? I think normal sex wouldn’t suffice here with a one on one," I offered and lifted my head.
"Hell no!" Renee shouted back and tackled Katya in turn. "I need to show him what happened at the end first!"
"Wait, what?" I asked and pushed myself upright. "At the end? You didn’t die?"
"Oh yes I did," Renee chuckled as she untangled herself from Katya. "My skill cam was on, and since Maelstrom was cast in the dead center, we got everything baby!" she said excitedly.
"Damn. That was good thinking," I replied and crossed my arms as I sat on the warm sand. Renee crawled over to me on all fours and sat beside me.
Hazard Online 2: Revenge Page 15
