Acrion- Cascade
Page 4
It took the better part of an hour of non-stop walking and occasional jogging to finally bring the mine into our line of sight. The entrance had a strong looking wooden framework built around it that seemed to extend into the depths a good ways.
The entrance was unfortunately not devoid of players like Hael was hoping, but was strangely littered with a large number of grave markers.
As we approached the earth in front of us bulged suddenly. Hael knowingly just raised a hand to show we should stop walking, and within a minute a tree had sprouted and grown at a massively accelerated pace. The tree reached forty feet into the air, right in the middle of the path we were on, and then a woman, wearing a long robe that looked like it was a complete living forest, stepped right out of the trunk as if the bark was made of water.
She straightened her living robes and swooshed her vine braided hair over her shoulder. She nodded at Hael warmly and then swept a hand behind her about to start talking when she realized she was alone. She huffed and then reached into the tree up to her shoulder, pulling out a young man and setting him on the ground in front of her like he was a sack of flour.
She scooted him in the exact place that she was originally going to have gestured towards and then reset her own position, as if nothing had happened. Nodding to Hael familiarly again and then pointing at the young man. "This is Will, he will be my sponsored applicant this month." She said in an interesting accent that was easy to understand, but hard to place. Hael nodded at this like it was all an everyday occurrence. Who knows, maybe at the higher levels this show of casual power was normal. I glanced at the plant lady's info and was nearly knocked over. Level 185!! Her name was Forestrala, and she was a druid, damn. I heard that level 100 was a massive achievement in Acrion, but 185 must make this lady one of the top players in the region at least.
"I'm glad to take any applicant of yours, anytime Gale. Thanks for bringing him all this way personally, my team would have been set back a day or two waiting if you hadn't taken the time." Gale waved this away and gestured for Will to join us. He cautiously walked away from the druid woman, looking like he was about to explode if he got more than ten feet away from her. Fortunately after a second of him pausing every step or so, he seemed to relax hugely and casually walked up and join our squad, smiling at all of us and shaking hands with Hael.
"I would say it was nothing and I had nothing better to do, but we both know that would be a lie. I would normally train Will here myself, especially with his...condition, but I appreciate you stepping up to help out even with your...situation." It was Hael's turn to wave off her words. "Anything to help out, you know." He mumbled.
"Speaking of Milenta." Gale said with seemingly no prompting whatsoever, perhaps in an attempt to lighten the mood, but obviously missing the mark. At her words Hael stood up straighter and seemed very attentive all of a sudden. "She said that she would be checking in on you periodically. Cranst said she would be free in three days, so I would expect her to pop by around then." Gale seemed uncomfortable with the conversation suddenly, even though she was the one that had directed it to this point. She turned, eying her tree when Hael didn't respond right away. "Please tell her that I'm happy she is okay." Hael said slowly. His face made it clear that nothing more was going to be said about this at the moment so Gale just nodded and then phased through the tree once again without saying a proper goodbye or giving any indication that she even remembered what she had been doing a minute prior. Strange lady.
"Sooo." Will said shakily. "Killing some spiders eh? I'm told that I'm immune to poison! Should be useful. I hope at least." he chuckled half heartedly but no one payed him much attention. Gleer was too busy buried in her book, and I was too distracted by the little nuggets of information that Gale/Forestrala had dropped about Hael and this Milenta person. What can I say? I'm nosy.
Hael was different after Gale disappeared. Even after her portal tree shriveled up and turned to ash a few moments after she left. He seemed more focused all of a sudden, and led us into the mine as fast as he could, Ignoring the jeering and name calling from the group of players that were stuck at the entrance.
The first few spiders were beyond frightening. They were "only" about knee height, but they would fall from the ceiling or jump from shadowy crevices. The fact that Hael's weirdly perfect movements made quick work of them, one shotting them every time with critical strikes, made it progressively less jarring when a new one would lunge at us. By the fifth one I didn't even scream...that much.
The imp snickered at me mentally, but I was pretty sure the one time a furry brown spider went for him, only to be intercepted by Hael's seemingly invincible speed, I heard him squeak in fear before he popped into the air, nearly smacking his head off the ceiling. in my mind we were even. It wasn't until we progressed down further into the mine that we came across the really big ones...
These bastards came up to my hip! And they made hissing snarling noises when they tried to bite you with their venom drenched fangs. The venom in question dripped onto the floor creating slightly glowing puddles that Gleer eyed hungrily and that I swore to myself I would never get near.
The first big spider was a much tougher fight than the comparably small ones we had plowed through before. The small ones ranged from level 2-4, but this big guy was a solid level 5. Hael and Will fought the thing in melee range, both fighting with daggers, Hael duel wielding and Will stabbing and parrying with just one pointy knife.
Further back, I stood next to Gleer and watched, half stunned. Watching Will get bit in the arm only for the young guy to grin in response and slash the spider across its eyes was a sight that I'd never thought to prepare myself for. If I thought that was weird, the whole fight was taken to the next level when Gleer sent an ice spell crashing into the spiders legs, effectively immobilizing four of it's eight creepy appendages.
His chest expanded like elastic and he suddenly barked out a massive breath that took on a purple hue and shot forward, hitting the snared spider and causing the mob to screech in rage. I could see that the imp's attack left a dot (damage over time) effect on the target which caused smoke to curl off of the spider's struggling body. Still half stuck in a thin sheet of ice with the imps attack slowly burning at its life force, the spider seemed to realize it's fight was over. With a few extra strikes and slashes from Hael and Will the creature bit the dust.
DING
Congratulations, you have reached level 2!
Attribute points awarded: 2
Training points awarded
+1 Stamina
It seemed that I wasn't the only one to get a level up either. Gleer and Will both looked happy and Hael seemed to be in slightly better spirits after getting some aggression out, although he was the only one that had been level two already, and had not yet hit 3. I glanced at my imp and saw that he was level 2 now as well. I smiled down at him and thanked him for helping out. He just swished his tail and twitched his ears.
We continued at a fairly consistent pace. The large spiders were impossible for only one of us to kill alone, but with all of us working together we were able to farm them effectively even as they slowly grew in level the deeper we pressed into their territory.
I would pull them first with my imps purple breath attack, while Will would move in, being the only one that was immune to the poison, and tank to the best of his ability, drawing the majority of the mob's attacks. Hael would then swoop in, easily doing the most damage out of all of us. He would gauge the fight as it went, calling for Gleer's freezing spell or more imp attacks as needed.
The efficiency of our method was reflected in our level. Within a couple hours all of us had reached level 6. And the fights with the spiders had very satisfyingly morphed into nearly trivial conflicts. With each level I gained
another two points, but I didn't get any more training points. Hael explained that they come from specifically doing things. A good example was that all of his stealthy movements and dodging of spider bites had caused him to gain two agility on top of the stats he got every level. Effectively giving him the equivalent power to a level 7 even though he was still 6 (we caught up). The walk/run over to the mine was what had granted me my bonus stamina. Interesting stuff. As we rested, having cleared the large spider area three times at this point, I opened my character stats to check on my numbers.
Lyst
Human
Level 6
Summoner (Veil)
Attributes available: 0
94
Strength-str
Increases damage done with weapons and abilities that scale off of STR.
Increases the amount of weight that you can carry before becoming encumbered.
10
Agility-agi
Increases damage done with weapons and abilities that scale off of AGI
Increases your maximum movement speed and attack speed
10
Intelligence-int
Increases damage done with weapons and abilities that scale off of INT
Increases your mana pool
Allows the learning of spells (magical Abilities)
10
Spirit
Increases the rate at which you regenerate health and mana
Certain skills and abilities scale off of Spirit
23
Constitution-con
Increases your health pool and resistance to status effects.
10
Stamina-stam
Increases your stamina pool
Increases the regeneration of STAM
Increases how much physical activity you can do before exhaustion
11
Focus
Increases your chance for a critical effect to occur
Increases the precision of attacks and actions
10
Charisma
Increases your persuasiveness and the rate in which NPCs (non player Characters) gain reputation and attitude.
10
I didn't know if I was going to regret it or not later, but putting everything into spirit was paying dividends. I never needed to stop and drink potions to regenerate mana like Gleer did and the feeling of putting points into that stat left me refreshed, mind and body, every time. To the point that when I leveled I would usually only put one point in at a time. keeping my second point to put in later when I was feeling stressed or fatigued. It worked beautifully. I was also able to keep my imp full up on mana which he really seemed to enjoy. Now he would jump at the chance to help me out if I asked, and he even anticipated some nasty surprises a few times, saving me from a couple spider bites that I desperately wanted to avoid. My opinion of the white furred summon grew with every battle, but he still made an effort to show that he didn't care much about me, which just made me think that he totally loved me.
"I'm thinking its time to move down a level." Hael said as we gathered up the loot from our last encounter. "We might be able to ding level 10 before we have to head back to Four Flags. Depends on the mob density down there." Hael said as he checked the last victim of our groups progress for loot. Gleer coughed slightly and looked sheepishly at the ceiling while picking at the cuff of her robe. "Hael? I don't mean to be a kill joy or anything, but I really could do with a break from the constant spider grind. I'm almost starting to feel bad for the creepy things" She paused gauging the groups reaction, and then pushed forward. "We all get new trainable spells or abilities at level 5 anyway right? So shouldn't we go and check in with our trainers? Not to mention that we need to resupply and we have a ton of venom and fangs to sell and analyze, I'm really excited to get to the next rank of research." She mugged a little and glanced at Will a few times. Will, who turned out to be a druid that never used any druid skills except apparently being immune to poison, didn't have to say anything for Hael to know that he wanted to head back to town a little early as well.
I kept my reaction perfectly neutral. Honestly I wouldn't have minded pushing on, but I hadn't known that we get new spells at level 5. So I certainly wouldn't mind tracking down Kara and getting something new. Although now that I thought about it I hadn't even used my Veil Siphon spell once in this little adventure. I'd just always been funneling my mana to the imp and occasionally cracking spiders over the head with my super basic melee weapon, which honestly was little better than a household hammer. How the developers believed a hammer was the ideal starting weapon for a summoner was beyond me. I'd seen Gleer's wand poking out of her robes several times. She even mentioned that it gave her +1 to intellect!
As I pouted to myself Hael caved and called a full retreat, agreeing to head back to town, but extracting a promise from each of us to come back to the mine first thing in the morning. Regardless of his bright demeanor I saw that he was disappointed that the others wanted to pack it in so early. I hoped he wasn't pissed I hadn't stepped in to vote to stay, but the air was kinda stale down here...
With that settled, we trudged our way back through the few re-spawned spiders that were popping back up after our last pass and back to the smaller spider section. There we found dozens of the little guys, all dead, littering the ground. In Acrion if you looted a corpse it would quickly fade into nothingness, so that meant someone, or many someones, were just farming these poor fuzzies for their xp and nothing else. I took a moment to wonder how many spider fangs were going to waste, and thought about letting the guys who were doing the farming know about their lost profit, but decided against it.
It didn't take long to find the party that was doing the damage. We'd only been down in the mine for a couple hours, but our level increase showed the efficiency and speed that we'd eventually achieved. On the contrary, this was a group of ten guys who were swinging at anything that moved and relying on their overwhelming numbers to take advantage of the smaller spiders speedy re-spawn timers. They were the same group that we passed on our way in. They apparently got over their initial hesitance, much like myself... based on the fact that I just called one of the watermelon sized spiders a 'poor fuzzy'... Their average level having increased to around 3, from the level 1 that they were at before.
Some rude remarks were made, as expected from a pack of guys with swords and other assorted weapons, but we were fine with passing by without incident... until one of them tripped Gleer into a heap of furry spider corpses and laughed as she scrambled to put distance between herself and the spider bodies.
I was already on my way to shove the guilty party, but Hael was faster, much faster. Daggers flashed and rage filled his eyes. Unfortunately for Hael's revenge issues, Gleer was even faster than he was. A thin streak of ice knocked the cocky man against the wall and froze him in place. His smirk was instantly erased as Gleer's higher level magic resisted his attempts to break out of the impromptu prison. I guessed that he was a warrior type and relied on his enhanced strength to deal with his problems, because he looked surprised and then suddenly worried as the chill began to seep into his virtual bones. With Gleer at level 6, doubling the ass's measly 3, her intellect empowered ice was more than up to the task of restraining him.
"You should really check who you're bullying before you do it. Might get yourself into trouble one day." Gleer said sarcastically with a frosty voice.
"Screw off, bitch. Whatchya gonna do, kill me? Ha! As if." The man seemed to not have learned his lesson and I was about to order my imp to spit in his face, when Hael raised his hand and shook his head. "He's right. If you kill him without him dealing damage to you first you'll be marked as a murderer. It'll throw off your reputations and everything, and it lasts until you find a judge to remove the mark. Definitely not worth it for this trash." Hael looked like he had indigestion over not being able to punch this clown in the face and I was wondering if my imp attacked him, would I be marked as a murder.
I didn't
get a chance to find out though. Without missing a beat, Gleer flared a large ball of icy energy to life between her outstretched hands. "In that case." She said happily. Then she smacked the restrained guy in the face with the spell, point blank. The resulting crack almost deafened me, rebounding off the walls and down into the depths of the mine. The only thing left of the guy was a small glowing grave marker encased in already melting ice.
"Aw man, don't get me wrong, that had to have felt good, but now we are gonna have to find a judge!" Hael said, pride glowing in his voice and already moving to a defensive position in front of our mage. In response Gleer rolled up her sleeves and inspected her bare forearms, inside and out. "I don't think so, I scuffed my hand when he tripped me. Took a point of damage." She said with a sly smile, revealing that no murderer mark marred her arms (which is where such marks would appear apparently...news to me) and her scratched up palm on her right hand. Hael guffawed and high-fived her, her uninjured hand of course, and then turned, with his wide smile still in place, glancing around to see if any of the other nine guys wanted to avenge their fallen idiot.
I learned later that if someone from your party provokes an attack, the whole party is included in that persons actions. So our group in that moment had free reign to attack them, but they had no recourse to strike back, at least until after we'd hit them first, individually, but they probably wouldn't be in any shape to counter attack if any of us got even one shot in.
Their group seemed to have no real fight in them in the end, so our party left the mine and started our trek back in high spirits, spending most of the hour walk talking and laughing like we'd known each other for years. Little did we know that as we left the area, deep below our feet, the echoing sounds of Gleer's final spell finally reached the ears of something that had been content to sleep for a long time. It lazily sniffed the air, taking in the delicious scent of frost magic that the sound brought with it. There was something else in the air too, something...new.