by Oliver Mayes
Quickly leaning forward, he hurtled down the wall into the encampment, drawing to a stop behind an inactive merchant’s stall. Then he circled round the inside of the wall, keeping a watchful eye on all the doorways as he moved beside the Guild Hall. From here he could watch the whole square and be ready to make his move.
For a while there was no movement at all. Perhaps all five people had logged off for the night. But if there was an admin allocated to the hall at all times, someone should be out there to light the torches before too long. Sure enough, the Guild Hall doors clunked open and the bend ahead of Damien was illuminated with flickering fire.
A level 10 assassin was lighting torches along a predictable path. Each time the player stopped to light a new one, she’d stand still for three seconds, completely focused on the task at hand. She was less aware than the rats had been in The Downward Spiral, and easier to read.
Of all players, Damien would have thought an assassin would know to be watchful. But players always feel safe in their home base.
With her back still turned, Damien glided up to her and looked for the best place to strike, doing his best to stay just out of her torchlight. She was well armored for her level, but the leather guarding her neck was not especially thick.
His first sweep cut through the thin layer of clothing and sliced into the assassin’s throat. It was a confirmed sneak critical, but the blade had lost some of its force from the debuff he suffered entering light. He swung an identical strike from the opposite direction, enabling him to get the kill quickly enough.
A level 10 player might have a lot of health depending on where they put their stats, but assassins had little interest in more health. They relied on evasion for defense, which was – ironically – why they were quite easy to kill when you sneaked up on them.
The assassin's body collapsed, her torch extinguishing as it hit the ground. It was one of the easiest kills Damien had made since he started playing and also one of the most rewarding, the majority of his XP bar filling up immediately. The experience points were closely followed by a stream of silver vapor which flowed into the wraith, granting two full souls' worth of energy.
Damien had made his first player kill.
He turned and made his way back to the Guild Hall, going around the outside to avoid the few torches that had been lit. The body had fallen outside the light, so Damien wasn’t too worried about it being found.
He was more worried the player he’d just killed would contact a guild mate offline and sound the alarm. There was nothing he could do about that except act as quickly as possible.
Opening the Guild Hall doors by a crack, Damien peered inside. Reminiscent of a Viking feasting hall, a long table led to a raised platform with a staircase leading up to it on either side. Only one side of the hall had been lit. There was still plenty of space for Damien to conceal himself if he moved quickly.
He slipped in and closed the door behind him, darting out of the fires' glow before his skin started to crackle. Despite his efforts, someone heard him enter.
“Spanish, is that you?”
A figure leaned over the half-lit balcony, torch in hand. This one was level 13. A mage, by the look of his robes.
“It’s no use sneaking, I heard the door close when you came in. You know I hate it when you sneak up on me!”
Damien looked around for any other signs of movement, but it appeared he and the mage were alone. He slid up the dark side of the room toward the stairs and poised himself at the bottom to wait.
“Fine. But if you jump me from the shadows I’m hitting you back.”
Damien considered this. His opponent was 6 levels higher than him. The wraith would get blasted if he got spotted before he could engage, and thanks to his bad luck the mage was now alert to someone concealing themselves.
Footsteps thumped angrily down the stairs and the light of their torch spilled out ahead. Damien decided he’d rather not attack from the front. He’d have to go around and get behind the mage.
Damien turned and shot for the stairs on the opposite side. He put on a burst of speed when he had to pass through torchlight and turned up and around sharply. Luckily, there was only the barest hint of a hiss as he flitted in and out of the light.
His control was improving. He was around the corner and on the raised level before the mage had reached the lower floor. The mage called out again, his voice reverberating off the walls, loud and stern.
“SpanishInquisition? This isn’t funny. If I find you’re in here and messing with me, I’m gonna blow you away.”
Damien didn’t like the sound of that. He dashed toward the flight of stairs the mage had just descended, but something caught his eye.
There was a table with a noticeboard behind it. Both of them were covered with plans and timetables. He made a note to take a closer look after he’d dealt with the mage.
Said mage was heading toward the front door slowly and carefully, checking his surroundings with the torch raised over his head and the other hand draped in fire. The spell he was holding cast yet more light. Worse still, he was keeping his back to the wall.
Sneaking up on him was going to be impossible, and he’d already inadvertently cut off Damien’s route to him by lighting up the other side of the room.
Damien searched for another path to the front door that hadn’t been illuminated and found one, down the middle of the ceiling where torchlight from the floor couldn’t quite burn the shadows away.
Without hesitating, Damien moved up the wall and further, until he was upside down, then picked his way down the middle of the ceiling. He returned to the floor directly next to the front door and watched the mage make his slow, careful advance down the hallway.
The mage suddenly stopped and glanced up to the right, distracted. He nodded slightly and spoke to the open air, apparently communicating through his headset.
“This isn’t funny. Come out now!”
There was a pause and Damien couldn’t hear anything, but the mage’s expression changed to one of relief and the flames went out in his hand. He stopped looking around himself and lowered his torch. This was what Damien had been waiting for. Slowly, he moved into position and waited for the right moment.
“Oh man, I was certain it… No, I thought I heard you come in and you were going to make me the star of one of your stupid videos—Wait…you got killed by what?”
Damien pounced. Rather than using slashes which might be turned away by fabrics or defensive magics, this time he opted for maximum armor penetration. He struck the mage in the back with a flurry of impalements, running him through the torso five times. It happened too fast for the mage to know he was dead, so the first three strikes had Sneak Attack damage modifiers. Two of them also found vital organs, earning them a Critical Strike damage modifier as well. What little of the mage was left slumped to the floor.
The mage had been almost twice Damien’s level, his experience bar larger by several orders of magnitude. From the EXP explosion that followed, it was clear why he’d been so concerned about dying.
Damien hit level 8 and passed straight through to level 9. There was more work to be done before he could pat himself on the back. The assassin had called the mage through the headset and now both of them would be calling other people. Damien’s window of opportunity was closing and he still needed one more kill for Bartholomew’s quest.
He turned for the door but then remembered the table he’d seen at the far back corner of the room. It had looked important.
Damien shot down the hallway and up the stairs, ignoring the burn as he swept past the arrayed torches. He slowed to a halt directly in front of the table, far away enough not to be burned by the torchlight but close enough to see.
There was a raid schedule on the noticeboard. A list of all the elite dungeons Rising Tide would be visiting each week, with times, places and the current party compositions.
Damien double-checked that his headset was still recording so he could go over the s
chedule in detail later. He panned backward to get a final overview of the whole schedule. Perfect. All he had to do now was find a third victim so he could dismiss the wraith and get out of here.
He’d left the Guild Hall and was moving across the courtyard towards the inn when the Portal Stone at the courtyard’s center was lit up by four glowing blue spheres. Players were teleporting in. Damien changed direction and increased his speed, making it to the outer wall as the glow faded and the players arrived.
It was the party of four that had left earlier, led by the level 14 paladin. They immediately drew their weapons, looking around themselves warily. One of them pointed at an immobile lump resting below an unlit torch; the assassin’s body. The four of them ran towards her as a group, the paladin picking her up as the others flanked him, before running into the Guild Hall.
Moments later the bell at the top started ringing.
Alarm clanging, the paladin came back out, meticulously checking the darkness around himself with his war hammer in hand. Then he yelled loud enough to be heard by the whole encampment.
“Level two breach! Players have been killed! Meeting at the Guild Hall, now!”
Damien considered this. He didn’t like his odds against the heavily armored paladin, but a few other Rising Tide members were leaving the Inn and running across the courtyard to safety. He’d have to move fast, but he might be able to pick off a straggler.
He circled the outer wall to stay concealed and was moving up the other side of the Inn to position himself near the door when there came a rhythmic tapping in the center of his forehead. Noigel was signaling him to come back. Damien didn’t need Noigel’s help to know things were not going according to plan, but he still needed one more player-kill to complete Bart’s quest.
He ignored the irritating sensation and paused around the corner from the door, waiting for another player to exit. He’d been in position for all of five seconds when the tapping on his forehead lost rhythm, becoming urgent and sporadic.
Perhaps there was another problem.
Damien turned to the outer wall and rocketed up the side of it. He looked out towards his hiding place from the top and immediately saw why Noigel was so agitated; there was a level 12 ranger approaching the trees where his body and the four imps were concealed. The trees weren’t thick; the ranger was going to spot them with ease.
There was a shout from below and Damien turned to see the paladin pointing up at his outline on the wall, with several recruits gathering around him and raising their weapons. The element of surprise was completely gone.
Damien retreated over the wall, hurtling down it before setting his sights on the ranger. This would be the last chance he got to kill a member of Rising Tide tonight. He certainly wouldn’t be going back to the outpost again while they were all on high alert.
The ranger reached the first tree and braced his back against it, his crossbow held at the ready to ambush Damien’s prone body. Before Damien could reach him, he jumped from around the tree and pulled the trigger.
A crossbow bolt ejected at high speed, only to fall short when one of Damien's imps threw themselves into its way.
Noigel’s tapping became a thumping fist.
The remaining two imps leapt toward the ranger before he could reload his weapon, claws extended and teeth bared. He knocked one back with a blow from the butt of his crossbow and caught the other in an outstretched hand before throwing it back. The crossbow disappeared as he swapped it for a pair of short swords that materialized in his grasp.
So focused was he on the two imps, he hadn’t noticed the shadowy figure hurtling towards him across the open plain. Damien punched an armblade straight through his side, his armor penetration aided by momentum and his damage enhanced by Sneak Attack. The two imps leapt in while the ranger staggered sideways and Damien continued his assault. It was not a drawn out engagement.
Damien advanced almost to level 10. He canceled Possession and pushed himself onto his feet. Once he’d collected himself, he signaled for his minions to follow him and ran out from under the trees, directly away from the outpost.
They needed to get far away as fast as possible, especially since the player they’d just taken down would soon give the others their location.
Once they were moving, Damien took stock. He still had the wraith and three imps. Having already collected souls through possessing the wraith, Damien’s soul count was full, 7/7. Not only did players grant him excellent exp, they dropped far more soul energy as well. Most important of all, the quest was complete. He was going to get to level 10, he was finally going to get some great gear and he’d done it all in less than a single day.
Even better, he’d found and recorded Rising Tide’s raid schedule. When Damien first told Bartholomew he was going to kill Aetherius he’d been completely sincere, but he also hadn’t been certain how the hell he could do it.
Between the discovery of his Soul Harvest’s true value, his success assassinating players in the outpost and this new sensitive information, Damien knew he had a chance, even if it was a slim one.
He grinned as the bell at the top of the Guild Hall sounded out over the empty plains around him. His first bid to save his mother and take revenge on Aetherius had been a success.
And this one-man war was just beginning.
16
Purpose
Damien picked his way through the traps littered throughout The Downward Spiral. He was so eager to collect his reward that he had a hard time concentrating on minding his feet, even with the traps highlighted.
It was much more dangerous going down than it was going up. After all, the traps were designed to kill people who were entering the dungeon, not leaving.
After an arduous journey, with some close calls that made Noigel squawk in panic, Damien finally reached the boss floor. No sooner had he touched down than Bartholomew appeared a short distance away. The vampire inspected him thoroughly and nodded with approval.
“You have become considerably stronger in a very short time. I am most pleased. It won’t be long before you’re ready for some new abilities. I take it you completed one of the quests? Which will you hand in, I wonder?”
“I killed three members of Rising Tide. I’d really like to collect the reward, please.”
Bartholomew grinned broadly.
“You decided to take the low road? A very sensible choice given your time constraints. Although I suspect the items I showed you earlier had some place in your reasoning?”
“Yeah, maybe just a little. Can I have them? Please?”
Bartholomew relented. He nodded and the quest flashed gold in Damien’s HUD, bringing Damien’s experience up to level 10. His bag weighed a little heavier on his back as the material rewards were added to his inventory. Without a moment’s hesitation he opened his menu to inspect them.
Occultist Apprentice Robes (Set)
Boots, Cloak and hood, Leather Bindings, Leggings, Robe (5/5)
Set Bonus: +5 to Agility, Constitution, Endurance and Wisdom
Description: A powerful set granted to worthy initiates. These garments are designed to bolster an apprentice’s mana reserves and survivability while maintaining enough flexibility to engage in light combat. (Each individual piece provides +2 Agility, Constitution, Endurance and Wisdom. Having all five pieces equipped provides an additional +5 to these stats).
Sacrificial Dagger
Durability: 50/50
Damage: 25 + (Agility x 0.5)
Stats: 15 Agility
Description: A dagger crafted with the intent of performing ritual slaughter.
Special Ability: Sacrifice – Soul Reserve (0/1). This weapon has a single soul slot which is filled when it achieves a killing blow against a target that provides experience.
Damien had no sooner finished reading than he excitedly equipped everything at once. The rags dematerialized into his backpack and Damien felt different. Slightly faster on his feet. A little lighter and a bit more robust.
The magic robes were held tightly against his upper body by the leather bindings and bracers, ensuring he did not have any loose fabric hanging around his torso or upper limbs. The robes fanned out below his knees, just high enough not to interfere with sneaking. In fact, they would mask the profile of his legs so long as he was crouched down.
The boots were black leather, already pliable, a snug fit with soft soles that wouldn’t tap against the ground. He also had a cloak with a hood, concealing his face and hiding the sacrificial dagger at his waist. The gear perfectly embodied the synthesis of assassin and mage.
Damien looked at his mana bar. The set had granted him an extra 15 wisdom, which manifested as an extra 150 mana points. It had also boosted his summon limit to 8. But what he was really excited about was the sudden increase in his agility stat. The set and the dagger granted 30 agility between them, bringing Damien’s total to 49. The dagger was agility-based for damage, so this would make him much more useful in close combat than swinging bones around. The sacrifice ability on the dagger seemed very useful for gathering souls, so he’d waste less time killing trash mobs to summon more imps.
Not to be overlooked was the gear’s impact on his health, which had almost doubled from 190 to 340. It was nice to be a little less squishy.
Finally, his stamina had increased exponentially, which would allow him to run faster and further as well as taking more successive swings with his weapon. Since he’d only be swinging a light dagger with decent damage, Damien imagined he’d have a difficult time running out of stamina in combat from now on.
“The robes I would ordinarily craft enhance the mind, but I decided to make these after watching your efforts against the rats this morning. You seemed intent on being involved in close combat. Hopefully this makes it a more viable option. Do you find your rewards suitable?”
