Unbound Deathlord_Obliteration
Page 34
"Why are you still playing the game?" He asked, looking pointedly at the VirBridge I was holding.
"Reasons" I said, and I saw an almost imperceptible frown of discontent flash across his face. "Is there any point to this conversation?"
"You will be staying in the house from now on. The Marines have been kind enough to accept my request to keep you safe."
That was his subtle way of saying I was a prisoner until I paid some unspecified price.
"Sure, whatever." I didn't have any desire to leave anyways; if it became necessary later, I would negotiate then.
Cadbury came with my cup of coffee. I thanked him and he stood to the side, awaiting orders.
"You will stay in your old room," grandfather said. "I expect you for breakfast, all days at six o'clock. Don't be late."
"Sure thing." I sipped the coffee. It had been a time since I had tasted something that good. "By the way, did you kill the detective I sent looking for the hooker?"
Grandfather didn't hide his displeasure this time. "Jenkins was discouraged from going further in that endeavor."
I expected that. It had been too long since I had called him without any response; the detective had clearly dropped the job. I had only kept paying him because I had a touch of hope left.
Of course, grandfather could just be fishing for a name. If that was the case, I could 'correct' him in an attempt to mislead him, but Jenkins had been useless to me anyway.
"Where is she?" I insisted.
"Somewhere you won't find her. Drop the matter," he said impassively.
I sighed. She had played me, it wasn't something I could let go before I repaid her treachery.
I drank some more coffee. "Anything else? My game won't play itself."
He didn't answer that, only waved me away. I got up, taking the coffee with me. Cadbury led the way yet again.
It didn't surprise me how uncomfortable that whole conversation had been; neither of us were ready for it. Grandfather claimed to be worried about me, but was it true? Or did he simply want to keep me close so I couldn't mess with his life again?
At least I had to give it to him: he hadn't killed me. Even if I was a prisoner, blood still meant something to the old bastard.
I savored the coffee as if it were a rare vintage wine; it had been a long time since I tasted such a good brew. "Commend the barista for me," I told Cadbury. "This was awesome."
"I will," he replied.
When we got to my room, I didn't waste any time staring at the luxury of the place. I just laid on the bed and put the VirBridge back on.
27. Too Easy
It hadn't been long since I left everyone waiting for me. We resumed our search, found no enemies in the Magic Garden and returned to the corridor into the castle. At the end of the corridor, instead of going up, I took everyone down. Well, everyone but the two zombies we'd left guarding the lever room, that is.
The way was barred by a thick metal door, but we were able to force it open and found ourselves in a huge armory with thousands of full suits lightsteel armor, shields, swords, crossbows, and bolts.
In front of the armory, we could see another stairway leading lower into the castle and we decided to take it. It led to a small door. Behind it we found, surprisingly, a mining operation.
There were veins of lightsteel ore everywhere.
We tested it and discovered that not only did the ore have a high lightsteel content, the mine also had the same attribute-raising properties as the maze outside the castle.
If Manhart really had an Army, I could see why he would want this castle:
It had a perfect training environment, lots of weaponry, and a wealth of mineral resources.
Even I wanted the place, and I couldn't possibly hold it for myself once word got out of how amazing it was. I didn't trust the zombies even for a second to keep this secret from everyone.
We called it a day, and I'm sure all of us got on the internet to check prices for raw lightsteel ore and lightsteel equipment on the internet. I know I did.
Like I expected, the uncommon lightsteel shields were the most valuable stuff, followed by the mage staffs, and there were enough shields and staffs to fill my backpack and ring.
We were supposed to be offline resting, but when I logged back in to organize my loot, I found almost everyone doing the same thing. Thankfully, there was so much stuff that we didn't need to fight for it.
Although the shields and staffs were the most valuable and I focused on them, I still took a little of everything; too much of the same object would drop its market value, as per the law of supply and demand.
I spent the rest of the day mining and raising my attributes. Before going to bed, I had earned an extra point to constitution.
The next day, we decided to mine until everyone had forty points to strength and constitution. Only Daggers said she wouldn't do that; she would have liked the extra strength but constitution could become a problem for her. Constitution increased the body's mass in the game, and her character was being built for agility. She chose to mine until she got twenty points in constitution and then stop.
It took us four days' total to reach our objective, and it was the best gift I could give the zombies. I also raised my dexterity and willpower attributes, and my Miner trait by one. The strategist trait also went up because it was a core trait, not because of the mining.
Every morning, I attended breakfast at the mansion at six o'clock as ordered. Not because I was keen on making grandfather happy, but because Cadbury would come to my room at five AM and wouldn't leave until I went to the dining hall. Grandfather missed all the breakfasts but I had expected that.
For some reason, I hadn't heard from Manhart even though he was supposed to have arrived in the region already. As much as I wanted him to die, he still had to get me through the specters' army so I could get to Ter'nodril.
When I tried contacting him though, I was met with silence. The only reason I knew he was alive was because the quest he gave me hadn't been cancelled, like Marbareus' quest had when he was killed.
There was nothing I could do about Manhart for now so I just put it out of my mind.
Training in the mine had brought me to level thirty-six. It had been a long time since I had checked my character sheet, so I did it.
Jack Thorn
Unbound Deathlord
Resistance's General
Legendary Spotter, Hedge Wizard, Pioneer, Warlord, Dark Archmage
Level 36
Hit Points: 4195 / 4195
Mana Points: 2735 / 2735
Stamina: 635 / 635
Attributes:
Strength: 40
Agility: 29
Dexterity: 34
Constitution: 40
Intelligence: 30 + 2 [Items]
Perception: 26 + 10 [Items]
Willpower: 30
Charisma: 19
Traits:
© Skilled Strategist: 31
© Adept Controller: 23
© Adept Energizer: 16
Adept Mage: 11 + 10 [Items]
Adept Faithful: 11
Commander: 2
Healer: 2
Meditator: 2
Miner: 2
Scout: 2
Tactician: 2
Antimage: 1
Athlete: 1
Crafter: 1
Diviner: 1
Gold Digger: 1
Herbalist: 1
Mind Seer: 1
Negotiator: 1
Nitpicker: 1
Ranger: 1
Scavenger: 1
Shadow: 1
Sharpshooter: 1
Warrior: 1
That was pretty good. The Faithful trait was useless but why would the game help me grow the way I wanted to? That would be crazy, right?!
All zombies now had the same HP and similar stamina to me, except for the three who profited from my Strategist trait: Bear, Turtle, and the promoted Private Tank Eleven, who was now Sergeant Tank Teal.
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Except for Bear and Daggers, they were all wearing standard minotaur warrior equipment: lightsteel armor and shield, a lightsteel sword and a lightsteel crossbow and bolts. I had to admit that the horned helmet made them look good, even though it wasn't very practical.
We were as prepared as we could be; it was time to challenge the third floor of the castle.
* * *
Daggers had described the two giant minotaurs before but I still didn't expect them to be so impressive.
Two horned monsters, five-meters-tall each, wearing full plate armor was a sight to behold. The morbs floating above their heads were tiny small dots next to their huge bulk.
So far all we'd seen of the third floor was this room, full of life-size statues of armored minotaurs, the big golden doors, and the two armored giants.
Of the two giants, one had darksteel equipment and dark morbs floating above its head, while the other had lightsteel equipment and light morbs.
The twenty-four zombies with me were divided into two groups. We would first try to lure one of the giants out of position and fight it alone. Just in case it didn't work, Bear, Daggers, and I, would focus on one of the minotaurs with one group, while the other group would try to distract the other minotaur.
My job, as usual, was to nuke the hell out of the enemy.
Group A went to lure the Dark Giant. They hugged the wall, staying as far as they could from both giants but taking special care to stay further away from the Light Giant. There, they would shoot their crossbows.
The bolts bounced harmlessly on the minotaur's armor and it didn't even look our way. I laughed and sent a firebomb to explode in its face.
31 fire damage dealt to Dark Giant
Mister Dark Giant didn't even look our way, but one of the sixteen dark morbs floating above its head came streaking towards me, turning into a large black arrow. I let it come on, without attempting to defend against it.
The moment the arrow touched me it dissolved. I found myself inside a black bubble made of liquid darkness that ignored my armor, and tried to enter my body through my ears, nose, and mouth.
No damage received from darkness element (Immunity)
Just as it was forcing its way in, the liquid simply disappeared; I was completely immune to its damaging effects, but not immune to having my vision restricted inside the bubble. Five seconds later, the liquid fell on the ground and dissipated.
Thank goodness I had chosen to attack the Dark Giant first. I waited for its follow up attack but it never came. That was weird behavior; any NPC should have kept attacking us, but the giant acted as if it didn't care we were there, and had only retaliated to show us we shouldn't mess with it.
What if we weren't supposed to attack the giants?
As much as I wanted Daggers to be the one to try to speak with them, since she could dodge attacks, I was the one in the group with the most charisma. I removed my Circlet, put a helmet on, and approached.
The giants ignored me completely, not even moving their heads.
"Hello?" I said when I was ten meters away. No response.
Gulping, I walked two more paces ahead. "Mighty minotaurs?" I tried again and was met with silence again.
I took a deep breath, and kept approaching while trying to talk to them.
They never acknowledged my presence and soon I found myself in front of the golden door in between them. It took a lot of courage, but I touched it.
And, finally, the two minotaurs spoke.
"You, who wishes to raid and conquer the Castle of Edward, beware!" One of them spoke with a voice so powerful that it shook my entire body.
"At most, twenty-five of you will be allowed to enter each time!" The other said with an equally powerful voice. "No one else may enter until those inside die or leave of their own accord!"
"Trespassers will be met with death!" The first one concluded.
The silence that followed their voices was ominous.
Well, that was easy.
We had twenty-seven people in the room and it wasn't hard to decide on the two that would wait outside. All the Lieutenants and Sergeants would come, and the zombies who had always been tanks — though all of them were kind of tanks now that we had looted the armor — had priority.
After that, the Sergeants decided which Privates to bring and it was done.
We briefly discussed trying to sneak over twenty-five people through the golden door, but the magic arrow that had been shot at me discouraged them from trying it.
"Ugly-face, we gotta talk," Bear said when we were about to go in.
"Now?!" I asked.
"Yes, now." He was serious. "It's legal stuff."
I frowned. "Legal stuff?" That didn't sound nice.
"Yeah." He sighed. "You see, we have been streaming our adventures."
"We? Who is 'we'?"
"All of us. Except Daggers, I guess."
"I do not stream," she confirmed.
"So?" I asked.
"So," Bear said, "it went well. Man, the views for the defense and counter-attack against the minotaurs killed it!" He was half serious, half excited. He sounded fearful of what I might say and the zombies looked nervous.
It didn't surprise me that they were all in this together. Nowadays it was common for many streamers to band together, splitting their earnings amongst the group. Some did it equally between all of them, others paid more to whoever got more viewers. Twenty-seven people streaming together was usual. It was all about having multiple points of view to give the viewer a better experience.
They probably even had a main channel with a few people outside of the game highlighting the best perspectives. There was a lot of money in streaming. Even though I wasn't interested in it, I had read some articles on the subject.
"Cool," I paused, waiting for him to continue. "So?" I repeated my question.
"The thing is, besides the usual money, we got a good sponsorship offer. But they want you and Daggers with us. And they want us to decide before this raid."
"Oh." I didn't care about it either way, but I also didn't have anything against helping them. "Sure. What about you, Daggers?"
"Whatever you say, sir."
And with that, I realized we had become friends. Sure, she had helped me with the Air Force guys, but anyone would help someone in a life and death situation when all they needed to do was make a phone call.
However, in abiding by my choice on this she was de facto agreeing to something like a friendly partnership. I should probably call her later.
"Okay, we're in," I told Bear. "What do you need from us?"
He frowned. "Won't you ask what your shares are?"
"You can keep my share," I said. "Unless it gets to about a hundred thousand bucks monthly, just divide between yourselves. But Daggers' share can't be lower than mine, and I must receive at least five percent more than you."
I didn't need the money, but it didn't mean I would just throw it away if it was a good amount. My poor family was practically bankrupt, after all.
Bear kept quiet for a long time, probably talking to the zombies and whoever else was involved outside the game.
"My share is five percent of the gross income. We can't give each of you ten percent, but we can give seven."
"Okay," I accepted. Whoever was negotiating for them was clearly an amateur; I wanted to receive five percent more than him, not have a five percent larger share of the total amount. I could push for more but that would be too unfair to them. "What do we do?"
"Give me your email, I'll send you the documents to sign." He said.
I had to logout, read some papers — I wouldn't just sign anything they gave me —, and change a few clauses that were too vague. The few years of law school I had attended came in handy. Only after I was satisfied with the results did I send Daggers a copy of the document.
We signed it and con
nected our VirBridges to their system so they would receive all the audio and video of whatever we experienced in Valia.
Just like that, we were part of Armless Entertainment.
The name of the company suggested that it was new, as it hadn't been too long since we had named ourselves the Armless Battalion. Part of me was itching to exploit them but I just told that part to shut up.
When we got back into the game, we still had to wait for the sponsor — some company that ran a store for selling games, Vapor or something like that — to sign the contract before going in.
Everything moved very fast. Armless Entertainment really wanted us and the website really wanted to sponsor Daggers and I. I wondered how famous our adventures were.
A few hours later, the twenty-five of us finally moved to the door and pushed. Although it was huge and looked heavy, it felt weightless. I almost fell from putting too much strength into it.
Way to start streaming.
The boss was right on the other of side of the door.
* * *
The room we entered was nearly identical to the room we'd just left, full of stone statues of minotaurs. The difference was at the very end, a darksteel throne contrasted with the lightsteel construction of the room.
It wasn't a small throne. Although the seat itself was correctly sized for the boss, the back of the throne extended all the way to the fifteen-meter tall ceiling. It was covered in etchings of mythical great beasts, like dragons, phoenixes, and others I didn't recognize.
The elites we had fought were three meters tall. Mister Boss, who was sitting upon the throne, was half again as big as an Elite. Not quite as big as the two outside, but not too far from it.
It wore impressive blue armor covered in spikes and golden details. The helmet didn't have the horned shape; instead, it had an opening for the boss' horns to come out.
They were curved backwards and for a moment I mused that it was going to be very hard to take the helmet off when it was time to loot.
A huge golden halberd was resting to the side of the boss, leaning against the throne.
The boss' helmet was open as we entered. That was an ugly minotaur if I'd ever seen one.