by Seth Ring
After ten minutes Velin had recovered and they made their way into the keep itself. As they were resting Thorn had kept a close watch on the entrance to the keep, assuming that the loud sound he made smashing the courtyard gate open would have drawn other enemies, but no beasts appeared, leading Velin to mention that the keep might be a dungeon.
Sure enough, as they walked into the keep’s entrance Thorn got a popup.
*ding*
Dungeon: Greymane Keep
You have discovered Greymane Keep. Built on the ruins of the Temple of the Moon, Greymane Keep has been infested with evil werewolves, spreading corruption to the surrounding area. Proceed at your own risk.
Curious, Thorn pulled up the quest that Thomas had given him.
Quest Updated - Lord of Greymane
Elder Thomas, the Greymane Village leader, has asked you to break the curse hanging over these lands by claiming your position as the Lord of Greymane. To break the curse you must sit in the Wolf Throne while wearing the Ring of the Wolf Lord. As an added requirement defeat all the werewolves in the castle.
5/100 Werewolves
0/1 Greater Werewolf
Rewards:
Title: Lord Greymane Unlocked
Area: Greymane Keep
Area: Fang Forest
Area: Greymane Village
Area: The Twins
Noting that the five werewolves that they had killed in the courtyard counted toward the quest, Thorn nodded in satisfaction. The burning desire to wipe out the werewolves grew hotter and he could not help but crack his knuckles.
“Whoa, slow down big guy.” Mina tugged on his arm ineffectually as he walked through the staging room at the dungeon entrance. “We need to come up with some sort of plan.”
“Weren’t you the one who wanted to deal with problems as they came up?”
Mina ignored his teasing, turning to look at Velin.
“Mina is right. We need a plan. We have the potions that will attract the werewolves and it would be a complete waste to not use them with these narrow hallways.”
Following her pointing finger, Thorn took in the dark stone hallway at the end of the room. Wide enough for him to pass through if he ducked, Thorn immediately understood Velin’s intention. It would be a relatively simple matter for him to block off the tunnel and deal with any werewolves that tried to attack him. Backed up by Velin and Akira’s healing and Mina’s ice spells and curses, Thorn was confident in being able to wipe out a thousand werewolves, let alone the 95 they needed to kill for the quest.
“Sounds good. But we will need to make sure we don’t let any werewolves get behind us. We’ll have to clear slowly.” Lighting a torch, Thorn led the way, trying to stay as quiet as possible.
The flickering torch light reflecting off the dark grey stone that made up the walls of the keep set the tone of the dungeon expedition perfectly. As quietly as possible they moved down the dark hall way until Akira remarked dryly.
“Master, you realize that sneaking around while holding a torch is pretty pointless, right?”
Blushing slightly at his stupidity, Thorn put the torch out, explaining Akira’s comment to Velin and Mina, causing them to chuckle. He continued to lead through the hallway, stepping over rubble and around deteriorating furniture.
Quite soon they came to a large room dominated by rotting tables and benches. The center of the hall featured a large fire pit, a rusty spit and roasting rack hanging over it. Moth-eaten tapestries hung from the vaulted ceiling and place settings lay scattered on the floor. Chairs were overturned and the sickening smell of rotten meat permeated the air. Thorn could only imagine how grand it had looked at one time.
However, what really drew Thorn’s attention were the four werewolves who had been ripping apart a human body that lay on one of the tables across the room. For a moment Thorn and the four simply stared at each other, then with piercing howls they threw away their meal and rushed him.
Anticipating their movement, Thorn took a large step forward and hooked one of the tables with his foot. With a flick, the table tumbled through the air toward the oncoming werewolves, forcing them to dodge and granting Thorn and the girls a few more seconds. Across the room they bounded, jumping over tables and past chairs, their glistening teeth and claws enough to scare the crap out of anyone. Motioning the girls back, Thorn retreated until he stood in the hallway, outside the threshold of the great room.
Within less than a second the first werewolf reached him and pounced when suddenly everything seemed to slow down, like it had when Gargish jumped him. Feeling all his senses sharpen exponentially, Thorn blinked in confusion at the slow-motion pounce coming closer and closer. It was as if everything within the range of his senses came into sharp relief, categorized neatly in his head.
He knew the number of chairs in the room, could count the stones in the wall to his left and was sure where the leap was going to take the werewolf. It wasn’t till he was halfway through counting the werewolf’s teeth that he remembered that the monster was trying to disembowel him and the tetsubo in his hand shot forward in a straight stab.
Calculating the werewolf’s trajectory, Thorn pushed himself back slightly and then stabbed up as fast as he could. Everything sped back up and the werewolf ran into the end of the tetsubo with a dull thud and a screech of pain. Rolling with it, Thorn stepped forward and thrust his tetsubo into the center of the werewolf’s heart a second time.
Blood dripped to the floor as the struggling monster was thrown off to the side. Crouching slightly, Thorn got ready to take on the others. He barely had time to take a defensive stance before the next one came up to him, throwing a rapid series of slashes. Pushing into his opponent, Thorn managed to block most of the damage with his arms and shoulders but earned himself some deep slashes for his efforts. Seeing the werewolf trying to back up, Thorn helped it along by snapping a kick into its stomach, watching it as it blasted backward, crushing a table before it hit the stone wall.
Watching proved to be a mistake as the third and fourth werewolves hit him at the same time, one trying to bite into his shoulder as the other tried to gouge out his side with wicked looking claws. A cold blast raced past Thorn’s side as Mina jumped into the fight, stunning one of the werewolves.
Seeing that the werewolf at his side had been dealt with, Thorn instinctively reached out and grabbed the head of the other werewolf and ripped it off his shoulder before throwing the startled monster at the wall so hard its skull shattered. As for the last werewolf, it only had time to gape in stunned astonishment before a fist smashed its head back, snapping its vertebrae like a twig.
Now bleeding profusely from his shoulder and side Thorn could feel the familiar weakness creeping in. Thankfully, Velin was quick with a healing spell and in no time warm energy filled him again.
“We seriously need to work on our coordination.” Velin’s voice was flat as she healed Thorn. “And you need to pay more attention. I noticed you looking away in the middle of the fight. While you have a lot of advantages, lethal strikes will still kill you outright.”
As Thorn continued to heal up, Velin explained that due to the realism of Nova Terra attacks did not deal a set amount of damage, instead health represented the state of the individual’s body. As damage accumulated so did fatigue, making it harder to act the more damage a person took. This didn’t mean that death would automatically come when an avatar’s health hit zero, instead, it would come when the avatar succumbed to its fatigue.
This allowed characters to launch devastating sneak attacks by targeting critical areas. A critical strike would overwhelm the target with a powerful burst of pain and fatigue, killing the player and logging them out of Nova Terra.
The encounter that Thorn had with the four werewolves took only a few seconds, but it showcased exactly how lethal Nova Terra was. Not only were all four werewolves dead but Thorn could easily have died as well. A bite to the shoulder was not that dangerous but if the same attack had landed on his neck or
head, it would have sent him out of the game instantly.
“Healing is strong, but my casts are not instant. If you get hit with a critical strike, you won’t last long enough for me to get a healing spell off. Since you are not a traditional tank we need to set up some better patterns as my normal way of handling damage are not going to work with you.”
“Sure, what do you suggest?”
“Give me a moment.” Velin pulled out her notebook and started flipping through it while Thorn and Mina looted the bodies of the werewolves. After a few minutes, the elven Priestess snapped the book shut. “Here is the plan. Thorn, we are going to forgo the normal means of tanking. The hallways are too tight for you to swing your club around.”
“Tetsubo.”
“Sure. The hallways are too tight for you to swing your tetsubo so we need to stay in open spaces like this one. Additionally, since you can kill the werewolves with a solid hit, why not turn offense into defense? We are going to revisit our ambush strategy, using this hall. Using the attraction potions that we were given, we will draw the werewolves back here and then we will hit them. Preferably with a table or something like that.”
“Oooh, like a tower defense game!” Mina’s eyes glowed with excitement.
“Sort of. We want to lure the werewolves into the center of the room and then ambush them. There are five entrances to the hall. We can ignore the one we came through, leaving four, which means we either need to block off one or someone has to handle two different hallways.”
“How about Akira?” Thorn scratched his head as he looked around the room. “She could run down a hallway to attract the werewolves’ attention.”
“Can she outrun a werewolf?”
“I’m honestly not sure.” Calling his battle pet over, Thorn stroked her fur as he questioned her. “Akira, can you outrun a werewolf?”
“Of course I can!” The little furry creature preened proudly. “I am the fastest Ailuridae ever!”
“Uh huh. Well, she says she can.” Thorn shrugged his massive shoulders at Velin. “We can give it a try.”
“We should not need to do much running, as the potion should do most of the work for us.” Taking four of the potions out of her inventory, Velin handed them out. “Alright, the plan is simple. We will each walk halfway down a hallway and drop a bit of the potion. Try to get it on the wall. We’ll then wait to see who shows up. If no werewolves show up we will move to the 75% mark and repeat the process.
“Remember to retreat as soon as you apply it. We don’t want to get separated. As soon as you have applied the potion, come back to that entrance.” Velin pointed to the doorway they had entered the great room from. “We’ll stay in that hall until we see the werewolves and then charge out to ambush them.”
“Sounds good.” Thorn nodded his head, holding a potion in his big hands. On a table, Akira crouched with a potion of her own.
“Haha, they won’t know what hit them.” Mina said, looking back at the others in excitement while she walked toward her hallway. Not paying attention, her foot caught on a rock and she tripped, stumbling forward. Barely managing to get her feet under her she finally stabilized and froze as the glass bottle slipped from her hand and landed on the floor, shattering into a million pieces.
An astringent, bitter smell rose into the air as the potion splattered onto Mina. A large puddle spread out on the ground as she stared in horror at the mess she had made. Hearing the shatter, Thorn and Velin looked at each other for a moment and began to run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Get back to the hallway!” Thorn yelled, his deep voice booming through the great room. As quickly as possible the three players ran back toward the hallway from which they emerged, Akira bounding ahead. Thomas had warned them to only use a bit of the attraction potion at a time since it was so potent, so Thorn could only imagine what dropping a whole bottle would do.
It was not long before he found out. Shortly after they made it to the entrance of the great hall, Thorn picked up the faint howls. From all around the castle the chilling sound echoed. Within moments Thorn could make out the grunts and growls of the werewolves as they began to pour into the large hall.
Werewolves bound into the room from three of the four other entrances, their noses twitching. Dressed in a ragged collection of armor and uniforms, it was obvious that these werewolves had, at one point, been guards of Greymane Keep. Now twisted into monsters, the werewolves rushed into the great hall, sniffing the air as they came.
Grey, black, and brown fur mixed together as the werewolves were drawn like magnets to the place Mina had tripped. Almost uncontrollably, they crowded around, pushing to be the closest to the puddle on the ground. Fangs and claws flashed in the light as the werewolves jostled for position.
Not wanting to let this chance go to waste, Thorn knelt and drew his arbalest, placing a pile of massive bolts against the wall next to him. The werewolves were so tightly clumped together that Thorn only had to aim in their general direction to guarantee that he would hit one. With a deep breath, he got ready to fire.
The City Defender series looked normal in Thorn’s hands but standing next to it Mina was dwarfed by how absurdly large the siege crossbow was. Intended for use on a castle wall to defend against enemy siege weapons, the bolts were almost as tall as she was and the metal bow was almost five inches thick at the center.
Normally, it would take at least three men to handle it while it was mounted on the wall yet Thorn handled it like a normal crossbow. Due to Thorn’s modifications the winch system was removed, making it impossible to draw without strength as insane as Thorn’s.
About to pull the trigger, Thorn felt a hand on his shoulder and paused. Velin walked forward quietly, muttering a spell subvocally as her long, elegant fingers brushed over the tips of the bolts, infusing them with a golden glow. Once she had finished casting her spell, she nodded at Thorn and stepped behind him again, readying a healing spell.
With another deep breath, Thorn pulled the trigger on the City Defender, the powerful thrumm of the string rumbling in the hallway. Without looking to see if he hit anything, Thorn grabbed his next bolt and slid it into place, pulling back the metal string of the arbalest at the same time. Almost as soon as the bolt was in place he steadied the massive crossbow and pulled the trigger again, at the same time reaching for the third bolt.
Across the great hall pandemonium reigned. The werewolves had not missed the loud noise of the arbalest firing, but none of them had immediately spotted Thorn and the girls in the entrance to the hall. Instead, they looked around in confusion for a split second. Their confusion did not last long though, as they soon felt the massive crossbow bolt that Thorn had fired ripping its way through their crowd.
The first werewolf the bolt hit simply exploded into pieces as the force of the bolt hit its back. The second werewolf was luckier and only lost an arm and a chunk of skin from its side as the bolt deflected. Spinning with brutal force, the bolt smashed into another group of werewolves, breaking bones and throwing them to the floor. Furious howls of pain mixed with the cries of surprise as all the werewolves fixed their eyes on the bolt that had shattered against the floor after blowing through the crowd.
*WHUUMMM*
The sound of a second bolt shocked the crowd of werewolves out of their stunned state and instantly they began to scatter. Yet how could they be faster than the arbalest bolt? Two more unlucky werewolves were hit and died instantly.
Not stopping, Thorn drew and fired the City Defender like a machine. So long as he aimed at a werewolf and pulled the trigger, the poor monster would vanish in a puff of red as the bolt passed through its location. Scrambling to get out of the way, the werewolves soon discovered Thorn’s figure kneeling in the entrance to the great hall, and with a furious howl, they began to charge.
“Mina!” Velin shouted, pointing to a clump of werewolves charging over from the right side of the hall.
“[Avalanche],” the witch commanded, summoning a mas
sive swirl of snow and ice in the path of the charging werewolves.
“Thorn!”
Releasing one last bolt, Thorn put the arbalest in his inventory and drew his tetsubo, launching himself forward into the large hall. Like a freight train he plowed over the werewolves who were leading the charge, his sheer weight smashing them to the side. Already he could feel the warmth of Velin’s healing spells landing on his back.
Grinning ferociously, Thorn began to lay about with his tetsubo. With a whir, the large metal studded club cut through the air so fast that it almost disappeared. Even grazing a werewolf proved enough to draw blood and those that were unfortunate enough to be in the weapon’s direct path simply ceased to exist.
Cutting his way through the werewolves in front of the hall, Thorn checked to make sure that the girls were alright before charging left with a roar. His glance had showed that the werewolves that Mina had tied up were struggling to get past her crowd control spells, giving him time to finish off the enemies on the other side.
