The Cursed Princedom (Realm of Arkon #2)

by G. Akella

  The Cursed Princedom

  Chapter 1

  I ducked under the attack, emerging behind the skeleton warrior, and hit his exposed side with Ice Blade. The mob's heavy two-handed sword struck the column right where my head was a moment ago, sending forth a shower of stone chippings. I wouldn't survive another blow, even one blocked with the shield. I still didn't know how I stayed on my feet—my HP bar was just barely over one third.

  A two-handed sword was a massive weapon, and difficult to maneuver. While my skeletal foe was turning around, I managed to land two quick strikes in the collarbone area, plunging its HP bar into the red. With the blood pumping in my ears, my whole world constricted to this six-foot figure with eye-pits that radiated a magical azure glow.

  "Die, you bastard!" I bellowed, stepping up to the skeleton just as it was gearing up for a swing. Harnessing all my hatred, I struck with an upward motion, burying my blade hilt-deep in its chin. My attack landed first by a mere fraction of a second, ripping through the skull with a crunch. As the glow in my foe's eyes faded, the bones burst and rained down to the slabs with a gnashing sound.

  Just then, an arrow plunged into my shoulder with a sickening champing sound—having escaped from Earth Shackles, the last surviving skeleton from the pack that had managed to ambush me had rounded the column and was already drawing its bow for the next shot.

  Your Toughness skill has increased to 44%.

  The world became shrouded in bloody fog. At around twenty percent life, I was struggling to think straight, my whole body warped with agonizing pain. Gritting my teeth through the pain, I pounced on the freak, interrupting the shot with Tongue of Flame. The skeleton archer tried to get some distance, fighting me off with a dagger that had appeared in his hand, but I didn't let up. I kept swinging, landing blow after frenzied blow, until finally I realized that my attacks were simply slicing through air. I'd survived! Lacking even the strength to drink a healing potion, I collapsed to the slabs and let the blessed darkness wash over me.

  I didn't know how long I'd been unconscious, but it couldn't have been more than five minutes. Were this happening in the real world, no doubt I would have bled to death without ever waking up. But this wasn't the real world, or rather, though this world had become quite real to me, it still operated by the game's laws.

  Where the hell had that bloody pack come from? I got up from the floor, where I'd been lying like an embryo, and surveyed my surroundings. Torchlight bounced off cracked mossy walls of a broad stone corridor in which six ugly columns carved with strange symbols were propping up the pending ceiling. Just ahead the path took a sharp right—it was from behind that very corner that the four skeletons had popped out of several minutes earlier, catching me unawares. I had been finishing off the last group in this area, and the pack's appearance was entirely unexpected. They definitely weren't a patrol group. Both patrols—six piles of bones and rusted iron—were lying dolefully in my wake. Before commencing with the clearing of the dungeon, I had sat for half an hour, diligently studying the pathing of all the undead mobs, so I could make this claim with absolute certainly. But then, where had that pack of attackers come from?

  I had rushed into this dungeon roughly an hour and a half prior in a desperate effort to escape certain death in the face of a level 232 gargoyle—a named mob that for some ridiculous reason had been hanging around a zone designed for characters in their 70s and 80s. The same gargoyle had once already dispatched me to a six-hour resurrection that ended up costing me seventeen levels—nearly all the progress I'd made over the past three weeks. To say that I had wanted to avoid going back to that graveyard was to say nothing at all.

  Dungeons in the Realm of Arkon—the game to which I had been irrevocably banished about a month ago—operated by the Spartan principle of "return either with your shield or on it." Any players who ventured into a dungeon couldn't leave it so long as the final boss was still alive. That left them with two simple options: clear the dungeon in its entirety, or die trying.

  If you told anyone about a level 65 player waltzing into a level 75-80 dungeon designed to be completed by a party of three, the person would laugh and call that player a nutcase. And they would be absolutely right. Fortunately, my situation wasn't quite as hopeless as it may seem at first glance. Before my in-game death I'd already reached level 82, and all of my skills had remained with me. Losing all those levels certainly stung, but out of all my gear there were only three items I couldn't equip: the ring, the earring and the cloak, all of which had 70 as the minimum level. And losing 51 stat points wasn't particularly critical since stat boosts in the Realm of Arkon came mostly from equipment.

  Presently I was wearing a set of unusual quality armor comprising eight items. Each item in the set added 35 points to strength and 35 to constitution, and wearing just four of the eight gave a set bonus of 50 to constitution. Along with absorbing 60% of incoming damage with every successful block, the triangular shield added 10 points to strength and 55 to constitution. My rare quality sword that dealt an average of 220 damage per second added another 100 to strength and increased my chance to hit critically by a whopping 3%. It wasn't the most OP get-up imaginable, sure, but it was more than sufficient. My greatest strength, however, was rather a unique spread of talents, and that was what kept me optimistic about my chances of getting out of this jam. And it had all been going according to plan until that group of four skeletons appeared out of nowhere and nearly spoiled everything.

  With a sigh, I unequipped my helm and gauntlets, used my shirt sleeve to wipe the blood off my chin, and circled the freshly killed mobs. The clanging sound signified a boost to my net worth: 218 copper coins, a little over two silver. I looted from the corpses three chunks of fur and a rusty iron belt without any stats. I'd already collected copious amounts of similar junk, having determined from the start to loot everything and sort out any valuables later on. Thus far my efforts in the instance had yielded only one item of unusual quality—level 70 mage gloves. Perhaps they might fetch a few gold down the line, seeing as I had absolutely no use for them. I may be a mage, but not exactly a proper one—my build called more for warrior gear.

  Torchlight painted fanciful shadows upon the stone floor. The dungeon's silence was spoiled only by the sound of dripping water and the heavy shuffling of feet around the corner, accompanied by the soft clanging of metal. Gotta keep going, I thought to myself. The decision was a difficult one to make due to the still-fresh near-death experience, but I had unfinished business out there. Waiting for me somewhere on the game's mainland called Karn were the only people in the world I still cared for, and a few unsettled scores.

  A wisp of gray mist ran along the ceiling—covered with cracks and streaks—toward the dungeon's exit. That was the toxic substance that had been raising the dead from their graves. I had no map of the instance, but this mist would serve as the thread of Ariadne, leading me ultimately to the final boss.

  I put on my plate gauntlets and helm, fixed the straps on the inner side of my shield, added some healing potions to the empty belt slots, and refreshed my Shield of the Elements buff. Now I was ready. Rounding the column with cautious steps, I peeked around the corner, my body plastered to the rock so as to avoid aggroing any mobs. The corridor branching off to the right was virtually identical to the one I was coming from, maybe a little longer, but no more than fifty-sixty yards. Otherwise, it was same torches on the walls, the same eight packs of skeletons roaming amid the columns, and the same black aperture serving as the passage to the lower floor at the end.

  And then I saw the source of the noise. A seven-foot level 80 ghoul in shackles was patrolling this part of the corridor, walking the l
ength of it and back again. The monster's step was heavy as he moved about this route. Metal bracelets encircled his wrists, and the bits of rusty chains dangling off them accompanied his movements with a soft clanging. The first boss encountered here boasted 40,000 hit points, which made me feel a little dejected. At least he didn't have any armor on—I wouldn't have a chance against him then. The monster moved slowly, stopping every so often near the undead packs, and standing still for several minutes every time he reached the end of the corridor.

  I observed him for a while, studying his pathing. Waiting until he made it to one of his more distant stops, I cast Earth Shackles on the nearest pack, rooting two swordsmen and an archer. Following up with a Silence on the skeleton mage, I ducked behind the column to avoid a stray arrow from the now-stationary archer. The mage, having been deprived of the ability to cast spells, appeared next to me in five seconds flat, and engaged me in close combat. Easily dodging his two-handed staff, I countered with four consecutive blows for over 2,500 damage, vanquishing the foe. I gunned toward the exit, hearing the heavy rattle of iron on stone—now free of my shackles, the swordsmen were hot in pursuit. I rounded the next-to-last column, kiting the brainless mobs, then Jumped toward the archer and interrupted his shot with Ice Blade. Any player worth his salt playing ranged dps would instantly hop back or to the side to avoid a melee situation, but, thankfully, the skeleton NPC lacked that kind of intelligence. Instead, he went with the standard strategy and produced a dagger; I, in turn, continued with my standard strategy and hit him with Tongue of Flame, taking his HP down to half. I snuck in another Ice Blade before running off—I had no desire to wait and see what two skeleton warriors in rusted armor could do to my defenseless back.

  Now that I'd cleared a part of the corridor, evading pursuers had become much easier than before. I wound between the columns for a while, constantly breaking line of sight to prevent the warriors from Charging me, though the archer did manage to hit me with an arrow that took seven percent off my health bar. At last, my kiting got me back within melee range of the archer. Just as another arrow plunged into my chest, I focused my cold fury and crushed the bonehead with Ice Blade. No pain felt thus far—excellent! I spun around, meeting my pursuers in the gap between the wall and the column. Blocking the first attack, I countered with Ice Blade which procced Freeze, transforming the sword-wielding warrior who'd reached me first into an ice statue before he could land another blow. Blocking the other one's attack with a shield, I finished off the frozen one in under five seconds, before the effect wore off. Then I Jumped to the side and and kept running, downing a health potion on the go. I kept kiting amid the columns for ten more seconds or so, waiting for my health to recover, then turned around to meet the last remaining skeleton in battle. Like his companion, this one ended up needing six strikes to fell—though rusty, the armor still lent the skeletons some degree of protection against physical damage.

  I waited for my HP bar to refill, then made my customary rounds of the slain mobs, collecting the loot. Besides the standard trash and two silver coins, I picked up four more skulls for the repeatable quest given by the captain of the punishers protecting Urcahnta. Disregarding even slivers of experience in my situation would be the height of foolishness.

  Before attacking the boss, I repeated the same process of pulling the skeletons toward the dungeon's entrance and fighting them there. After killing the fourth pack, upon my return I was surprised to discover that the skeletons I'd just killed were right back at their posts, alive and kicking. So that was where the mobs that had nearly sent me to the graveyard came from! The instance kept generating new packs of undead, probably at specific intervals, that simply appeared out of nowhere. Too bad I hadn't timed their spawning the first time around, but I would estimate the interval to be roughly twenty to twenty five minutes. I would need to be more careful henceforth, and be mindful of the time, but that shouldn't be overly difficult.

  The floor's boss ended up being surprisingly easy. The ghoul's behavior was predictable, with just one special two-strike combo with his chains every thirty seconds or so that stunned and knocked me down. After the first instance, I would simply Step through Darkness behind him, and keep hacking away at the repugnant lumpy flesh, alternating my top two skills. The clumsy mob's standard attacks were even easier to avoid by either dodging or blocking them with a shield. To be sure, I still had to do some kiting a time or two, but I never lost control of the fight, and the ugly bastard was down in about five minutes.

  The biggest downside of the fight was the unbearable stench oozed by the walking corpse, and the revolting slime that now coated my armor. Though regular skeletons hardly smelled of lavender in bloom, when comparing the reek of fresh corpses versus ancient bones, the latter most certainly came out the "winner." RP-17, the artificial intelligence that had confined millions of people to the game, had somehow made these virtual sensations feel exactly like the real world. I felt a pang of sympathy for the players who'd had the great misfortune of once selecting the necromancer class—having to smell all this foulness every day was a sure way to lose one's marbles. Besides, though I knew nothing of that class, somehow I doubted that fielding brainless skeletons was all that productive. Perhaps if they bestowed upon their master a special skill that blunted all sensitivity to odors...

  The boss' loot was a pleasant surprise, yielding the first drop I could actually use—level 70 plate bracers which, according to the game's canons, were called Ghoul's Solid Bracers and added 40 points to strength, 30 to constitution, and boasted a higher armor class than the ones I was currently wearing. The ghoul also dropped four health potions and a few gold coins—not a fortune by any means, but more or less in line with my expectations of a level 80 boss from a simple instance.

  Guarding both exits from this level were two remaining packs of undead, which took me another ten minutes to breeze through while adding more skulls to my already sizable collection. After passing through the dark arched doorway, I ended up in a spacious, scantily lit cylindrical room, with a wide spiral staircase hugging the wall at a downward slope. Carefully following the trail of grayish mist down its slanted steps, I began my descent to level three. Crushed stone crackled underfoot, and the draft was strong enough to waft in smells of rot and decay. A solitary magic lantern from level two illuminated—just barely—the old cracked brickwork.

  As I descended, I passed by two passages that appeared to be leading to other dungeon levels similar to the one I'd just cleared. It was likely that several different quest chains led to the Ghorazm Ruins; or perhaps those arched doorways concealed treasure chests crammed with gold and epic loot, just waiting for an enterprising player to crack them open. It wasn't that I lacked for curiosity, but such senseless curiosity when exploring alone called for a much higher level—I'd say at least 90—and ideally bolstered with an epic set of armor and a comparable weapon. And so, without any regret or hesitation, I proceeded down to the very bottom, and took a narrow passage, as if carved in the rock, to the dungeon's ground level.

  The large, rectangular space extended outward some one hundred yards, and the low ceiling, collapsed in places, pressed on my psyche. The walls were lined with all sorts of urns and sarcophagi—most were empty, but some still held decayed corpses. Crudely cut wall niches were stuffed with piles of bones, as if somebody had tried to hastily tidy up the place. Because of the low ceiling, the six dilapidated columns looked more like huge curbstones. The odors permeating every inch of space in this graveyard were so nauseating that I had to breathe through my mouth, and even that hardly helped. The trail of gray mist ran through the space, disappearing in a crack in the wall at the end. The way there was blocked by sixteen packs of skeletons and two patrol ghouls of the same type I'd wasted three levels above.

  It took me about four hours to clear the entire hall, though it would have taken much less if it weren't for new packs respawning every twenty five minutes. I'd polished my strategy to perfection: root three skeletons with
Earth Shackles, cast Silence on the mage, hide from the archer's arrows behind the closest staircase or column while demolishing the meleeing mage. The mobs all had varying movement speed, and generally ran up to me solo—sometimes I didn't even need to kite them amid the columns to restore life. In the end, with mountains of bones in my wake, my booty amounted to seven gold, heaps of junk of every material imaginable, a level 75 unusual quality dagger, and a potion of underwater breathing.

  The crack at the far end of the crypt led me to a square-shaped cave of stone, each side roughly forty yards long. Standing at the opposite end were two large stone tables lined with vials and vessels of varying shapes and sizes. The gray filth that had been my guide all this time was rising up from two simmering cauldrons affixed to three-legged metal constructs. Four massive heaps of skulls and bones piled up against the walls were used for kindling.

  There it was—my primary goal! The dirty gray window of a portal rippled softly at the far end of this laboratory of death.

  Master G'Hrash, the final boss of Ghorazm Ruins, wore a dark gray robe with an open hood, and was standing by one of the stone tables, sideways to me, crushing something in a makeshift mortar made of the parietal section of a skull yellowed with time. Looking at him from behind, one would never guess the creature was a walking corpse, what with his gray hair neatly combed and held together by a silver band, and a frock fully concealing his body. He could easily pass for an ordinary alchemist hard at work if not for the general ambiance and... Well, for my money, this was where the game's developers and RP-17 went a little overboard with pushing the macabre, for even walking corpses would much prefer using actual dishware—not old cracked skulls—for their experiments. There comes a point when trying too hard to create a dark and sinister environment instead produces the campfire scary story effect, a la "Once upon a time, in a Dark room of a Dark house at the edge of a Dark wood..." And instead of dread, you get mocking laughter.