EyesHlzU was silent for the next couple of minutes as they continued to make their way through the forest with the Reckless guild group. “It sounds like you were both lucky and privileged to have such players such as Strang3r and Gahbriyelle on your team tonight. That three-hour lockout and experience penalty is no joke – they knew what they were in for when they sacrificed themselves. I’m glad you’re back safe, even if not all of you made it,” Eyes finally broke the silence.
“Their sacrifice will not be in vain – as long as we make it back to the dungeon in time. We still have about 39 days so that should be more than enough time,” Devin confidently stated.
“I certainly hope so – but I also hope you didn’t just jinx us.”
Chapter 7
I should have kept my mouth shut, he thought 15 days later. The last two weeks had been spent on the run, avoiding parties of players from a multitude of different guilds. Small skirmishes with over-confident players had slowly whittled their ranks by two dozen Reckless guild members. They still had quite a few players on their side – with those that had died earlier slowly returning from where they had spawned when they were back from the lockout.
The first night after retrieving the stolen Dungeon Core, they all camped in a small valley nearly invisible from outside the camp unless you were right on top of it. They all collapsed in exhaustion, with Sh1fty assigning sentry duty to an unlucky few that would guard in shifts. Devin volunteered for the duty as well, since he had no need of sleep. He needed to rest after the exertions of the last night and day, but he felt he was alert enough to watch as much of the perimeter as possible. De4th and Sh1fty seemed surprised that he didn’t need sleep since as a player it was required (so that it seemed as realistic as possible). He told them that as a mob it wasn’t programmed in him to need to sleep – they were so used to his presence that they had forgotten that he wasn’t an actual player now.
During his sentry duty that night, he finally got enough time to crack open the crate containing the Dungeon Core. Because he was trying to avoid making a lot of noise, it took about an hour of slowly prying it open, but he was rewarded when he noticed through an opening a steady blue glow. When he finally reached in a pulled out the baseball-sized, glowing blue crystal he was relieved to finally hold it in his hand. Although his dungeon-given Core tracker and system prompt let him know that he had the object in his possession, it was good to physically hold it in his hand. As soon as he knew it was the real thing, he slid it into his shirt as securely as possible. He didn’t have a bag like most players, so he had to carry everything on his body somewhere.
They weren’t disturbed by anything that night but just as they were moving out the next morning they were surprised by a trio of stealthers that attacked some of the lower-level players on the outskirts of their large group. Four players went down in a matter of about 15 seconds, but the Reckless leadership was quick to respond – they immediately swarmed the three attacking players and took them down without any more casualties. After that surprise attack, De4th ordered the lower-level members to support from the middle of the group and had his own stealth-oriented players in front, behind, and on the flanks to provide warning.
Later that day, they observed a couple of smaller parties of players that watched from a distance. It could have been coincidence – they might have been questing and just happened to be there – but they were much too high a level for the area. They turned slightly off course in order to avoid a larger group that their scouts had sighted. Expecting that they were some more Divine Truth members that had somehow gotten ahead of the rest of the guild, everyone was surprised that the big group was actually a completely different guild that had no connection whatsoever. Most of the other smaller parties that they had seen were from different guilds as well, which was confusing to say the least – it was almost like everyone was hunting them.
When they stopped for the night, Sh1fty logged off to see if there was any chatter about them on the forums. When the Thief quickly came back with a serious expression on his face, Devin knew they were in trouble. He followed him into the command tent where a couple of guild members, including De4th, were lounging around. Without preamble, Sh1fty launched right into the bad news, “We’re fucked. Divine Truth put out a bounty for killing anyone in Reckless, as well as an award for the return of the Dungeon Core. A million gold. We’re going to have shitloads of people trying for one or the other of those paydays, with some of the larger guilds wanting both. Thousands of players have seen the postings already and many more are bound to see it within the next couple of days.”
The shocked faces of the Reckless leadership would have been funny, if it wasn’t for the fact that this was his life on the line. Devin looked toward De4th, hoping to see if he had any solution – only to be disappointed. Although he recovered from his shock faster than the others, dismay was still written on his face. “If anyone has any ideas how to proceed from here, let me know – there’s not much we can do tonight other than double or triple the sentries outside the camp to provide more warning. Looks like it’ll be a sleepless night for the majority of us, so get some sleep if and when you can. We’ll get together again tomorrow morning before we head out,” De4th tiredly announced.
Fortunately, Devin didn’t need to sleep so he was standing guard around the perimeter all night. He thought he had seen indistinct shadows further into the forest a couple of times during the night, but he figured his mind was playing tricks on him, looking for trouble when there was none. All during the night, they didn’t end up having any attacks – which didn’t lessen the stress any. In the morning, Devin joined the guild leadership for a planning meeting in the command tent.
As he entered, his confidence was bolstered by a cunning, yet enthusiastic, look on the leaders’ face. De4th had a plan. It was a complicated one, with many moving parts, and needed almost everyone to pitch in to make it succeed. Devin wasn’t needed much for it, because a lot of it was executed by guild members who went offline. Essentially, the whole point of their strategy was to use misdirection, misplaced cooperation, and not a little stealth.
First, the guild holed up in a defensible position in a clearing in the middle of a tight copse of trees that made them invisible from the outside. Then they had as many players as possible logoff and post false sightings of the Reckless guild and “prideful” boastings of having killed so many guild members at so-and-so place on all of the top game forums. To top off the misdirection, Devin brought out the Core for a couple of players to take screenshots of it. They would then post on the forums about stealing the Dungeon Core and that they would meet Divine Truth somewhere for the award.
This all led to players, parties, and even whole guilds looking through the forest in a myriad of different places for actual sightings of Reckless or the Core. With so many people looking for the same thing, conflict was all too prevalent. PK’ers were having a field day picking off the single players and lower-level groups that were wandering around – this led to their respective guilds taking action. Those guilds that hadn’t gotten involved before were sucked in as some of their members were being killed and hunted down by rival guilds. After days of constant hit-and-run fighting, small skirmishes, and even a protracted battle or two, Divine Truth got impatient. They raised the award up to two million gold for the return of the Dungeon Core.
This led to some of the top-tier guilds, such as Kingslayers and Sweat Success, joining the fray. This was what De4th was waiting for. The second part of the plan was to arrange a “meeting” between Reckless and each of the top guilds. He told them that it was to turn over the Dungeon Core for “protection” from Divine Truth and a share of the award money. Directing them to one of the larger open spaces that could be found in the forest – which just coincidentally happened to be within a couple of hours journey of the dungeon – De4th told them all that they wanted to meet in ten days. He even let the time and place of the meeting “leak” to one of the members of Divine Truth.
With that plan in place, all they had to do was sit tight and let the tension build between all of the guilds searching for them. They continued to post fake locations on the forums to keep everyone away from their hiding place and to keep the momentum going. Finally, the day came where they had to start moving. This was the most dangerous part because they were literally going out into a hostile warzone. Based on the misdirection supplied by the postings, they had a good route to the meeting planned out that hopefully would have a minimum of players.
They ended up running into a handful of random hunting parties along the way, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. Devin figured that they would post their location online, but it would hopefully be one of many “sightings” and would be lost in the shuffle. Besides, we’re on the move and going toward huge groups of players anyway. After quickly traveling to their destination, they camped again for the night hidden in a small valley close to the meeting location.
There are only 23 days left to return the Core to the dungeon – this plan better work, Devin thought.
Chapter 8
“Hey Devin, before we leave I’d like to talk to you for a second,” Devin looked his way before walking over to where they were breaking down the command tent. De4th was nervous but didn’t let it show to his fellow guild members – he had to maintain a confident demeanor for the sake of the “troops”. A lot was riding on the next couple of hours – their days of preparation would hopefully culminate into success. Careful planning could only get you so far – they would have to trust in their assessment of the players’ attitudes and emotions.
“We all talked about it last night and we’d like you to join our guild. You’ve proven yourself to be someone we would like to have as part of our family. It would mean the world to me if you join – I could also brag that I run the only guild that has an NPC as a member. It’s up to you though, I don’t want to force you – and it all depends on whether you can even join or not,” he asked.
Devin stood there with an unreadable expression on his face, before responding with a slightly choked-up voice, “I would love to join you and your guild. I haven’t had that many I would call friends before and I feel like we’ve all become good friends already. I also can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for Krista and I over the last couple of weeks – if it wasn’t for you and the Reckless guild, I wouldn’t have had any chance of literally getting my life back. I’m not sure if I actually can join or not, but I won’t know unless I try.”
De4th sent the invite to Devin, not sure what to expect. After a couple of seconds, he got a message saying that “DUMB has joined the guild.” He was thoroughly confused, trying to figure out why it said “DUMB” and not Devin or even Human Rogue. He looked toward the person in question and asked him about it.
“Damn it – I thought I could get away from that stupid name. To answer your question, DUMB stands for Dungeon Upgradeable Mobile Boss and is what I’m known as inside the dungeon. I hate the name and Krista can’t or won’t do anything about it – she says the Dungeon Player system named it and she can’t change it. Just call me Devin, and let’s all just forget about the DUMB name,” Devin informed him.
Chuckling softly, he warned Devin, “Well, all of our guild members just saw that notice – you may have to repeat what you told me a couple hundred more times before everyone understands. Or you could just use the guild chat – why don’t you try it out. Oh, and welcome to the guild!”
He watched as Devin tried to figure out how to use the chat, which was interesting because he looked like he was waving his hands randomly around in the air while saying variations of, “Chat”, “Guild Chat”, and “Chat for Guild.” Finally, a look of satisfaction appeared on Devin’s face before an explanation came across the guild chat that told everyone who the “DUMB” was. That should hopefully head off needing to explain to a bunch of people, if not some good-natured ribbing.
With that taken care of, De4th formed a raid group that included Devin in it. Immediately, he noticed a small status screen near his normal raid user interface.
Raid Bonus:
Dungeon Core: 12% increase to all damage dealt, all resistances, experience gained, and currency looted
I forgot about that benefit to having Devin in the guild – I’m glad he decided to join. That bonus may make this next part a little more bearable. With their preparations complete, he ordered all of the members of his guild to move out. They all knew what was waiting for them in the next couple of hours, but not even one hesitated. He was proud of what they had already accomplished – and what they would try to accomplish with this meeting. Even if everything didn’t turn out the way they planned, he was confident that it wouldn’t be because they didn’t work hard enough.
As they approached to the meeting area, he had them all stop so they could get a preview of the situation. Looking out from the edge of a dense grouping of trees, De4th and the rest of Reckless could see almost everything they needed to. Starting about 20 feet in front of them, a large clearing – about 1500 feet in diameter – was situated in the middle of the forest. It almost looked like a massive giant had ripped out a large random handful of trees and left the surrounding areas alone.
When De4th and his lieutenants sent the messages to the various guilds about this meeting, they ordered them not to arrive before 10 o’clock in the morning. They told them that if they were seen beforehand, then the deal was off. Checking the time, he witnessed a great influx of players arriving from all directions – right on time. They were lucky that they didn’t run into any of them on the way here – their scouts had found a gap through all the waiting guilds that were circling the clearing. He saw each guild enter and react to the presence of the other guilds, usually milling around in confusion. After about 15 minutes, each of the players that were going to arrive had lined up around the perimeter of the clearing and segregated into their own guilds.
Not wanting to keep them waiting, De4th shouted so everyone could hear him over the low rumble of so many voices in the now too-small clearing, “Alright everyone, in the words of my good friend Sh1fty – let’s go fuck some shit up!” A low cheer erupted from the guild, slightly muted because they didn’t want to call too much attention to themselves until it was time. He started walking toward the center of the clearing, followed by the rest of the members of Reckless. He could feel the stare of hundreds – possibly thousands – of players weighing down on him, but he forged ahead because he was now too excited to be nervous.
Stopping near the center, he looked around as representatives of the different guilds surrounding him all started to walk quickly toward their group from all around them. De4th and his lieutenants stayed silent even as angry guild leaders or co-leaders arrived, vehemently yelling at them about all the other guilds being there. When they were all close enough to hear him talk, De4th told them, “Settle down, we’ll figure thi…”
As if that was a signal – and it was – behind every guild leader appeared a player (and in some instances two) that had no guild affiliation attached to them. Almost as one, they attacked the guild leaders and killed them within moments before disappearing again. Silence reigned across the clearing as the guilds in attendance were shocked at the sudden occurrences. Reckless was silent as well, but for a different reason.
As part of their alliance with a couple of smaller guilds that wanted to help with their mission, De4th enlisted their help by having them provide some guild members who would be willing to leave their guild for a short period of time. These players were the ones waiting in stealth for the guild leaders to arrive – when they killed them they were not part of a guild so could not be traced back to it. With the wetwork done by these guildless players, specific Reckless members were instructed to send messages to the remaining leadership present on the field. Each of these messages was different, explaining that before they killed their leaders the stealthers mentioned the name of a rival guild or even – in some cases – Divine Truth.
This lead first to some confusion and then anger as De4th watched each of the guilds get riled up as they all shared news of who had killed their leaders in cold blood. Within minutes, the scenario that De4th had planned, worked on, and executed came to fruition there in the forest clearing. All it took was one guild, the Kingslayers, to start moving on Sweat Success before everyone present was out for blood. The sounds of screams, metal striking metal and magic explosions could be heard from miles around. Through it all – among the scenes of players dying only to be Resurrected soon after, entire guilds being overwhelmed by a larger guild, and even a swarm of undead skeletons rushing past as a guild made up of mainly Necromancers ran by them – Reckless stood untouched and forgotten by them all. Or so it appeared.
Knowing that Divine Truth would be appearing at the meeting, De4th didn’t have long to wait before he saw a massive group of high-level players emerge from the trees and head straight for the center of the clearing. As they were recognized, several guilds attacked them along the way, only to be thoroughly wiped out only moments later. After that, they were left alone before they arrived near Reckless – at which point they stopped and from the center of the group a figure emerged.
Topping out at almost seven feet, the guild leader for Divine Truth was an imposing figure of a woman. Justice (De4th figured she must have been playing a long time to have gotten that name) was a Human Commander that was decked out in top-tier raiding gear that shone brightly with a myriad of different effects – most of which added to her already significant health point total. Although he had heard about her, he had never actually met her before and was shocked to see she was level 112. 112! I’ve never seen or heard of anyone that high of level before – even the leaders of Kingslayers and Sweat Success were just under 100. He knew that the higher level you achieved, the harder it was to level up to the next. After level 60, it was extraordinarily hard to increase you level due to the experience needed being increased almost exponentially. To have progressed that far she must have been playing almost non-stop since game launch.
Dungeon Guild Page 5
