“I got killed by the golem and put in a soul gem. One of the demons picked it up and after that I got disconnected and hadn't been able to connect since,” she said with a slight grumble. “So he saved our butts then? I guess I owe him a thanks.” The words felt like gravel in her mouth.
“You make it sound like you're digging a grave. He's not a bad guy, you know.”
“It's fine, really. I'll send him a message or something. Anyway. Scalios is out then?”
“Yep. Everyone's out except the two we captured. I'll be letting them out a few days into the event. That way no one else can get suckered into their traps and they'll still have time to complete it. As per our original agreement. A few days and it'll be starting, excited?”
“Of course! Dragon is going to be a cinch! I looked over all the information I could find online about the trial, so I should be able to pass no problem. Heck, the dragon one looks like it'll be a ton easier than the angel one was.”
“That reminds me. You never told me which of the angel trials you went through.”
“Mine? Well... I tell you what. When I have all six classes mastered I'll tell you,” she said before sticking her tongue out.
“Hey! That'll take forever!”
“I know. That's the fun in it. I'm going to log out now though. I'll see you later, bye!” she said before disconnecting before he could object.
Asher sighed as he appeared back in his bed. He glanced to the clock and was surprised to find out he'd logged out early. That somehow felt odd, but he just didn't feel like playing now. Maybe the game was becoming too stressful for him. Maybe he just needed rest before the big event. He reached up and, with great effort, managed to remove the head set. He laid it by his lap and closed his eyes, the minor movements exhausting. He'd just get a nice nap and try again in the morning.
------
Asura could barely contain her excitement as she looked over the announcement board in the dragon's capital city, Camelot. Fang was going to be okay. But even more important... well... equally as important, the quests started today. Already dozens had tried, and the quests had only been going for an hour. She was less than patiently waiting her turn. She had changed to her dragon class and was wearing her angelic armor. Rather than going with one weapon, she had both Excalibur and Scalemorne at her side. She didn't plan on taking any chances.
A small beeping drew her attention before she opened her menu. A new quest had been added. A questionnaire materialized into her hands and she began to fill it out. “Master class attempt, dragon. Previous mastery? That's new, but I guess it makes sense. Angel. Value most about the dragon race. Their unstoppableness. Is that a word? I think it's a word. Done!” She squealed when she tapped the top of it once and it disappeared. Moments later the quest changed and told her to head off to a small cave in the dragon lands.
That was hardly unexpected, which was why she was at the Capital. It was a massive city built into the side of a volcano, with spouts of deadly lava flowing from the walls and magma dripping from above. Not the best place to trip or fall. She disliked the heat, so was thrilled to be leaving. She flapped her wings and took off at max speed, heading away from the scorching city.
Asura soon came to her destination: another large active volcano housing a lake of lava. In the center, sticking out like an island in the sea, was a large cave entrance. It was only barely above lava level so she was forced to descend very carefully.
When she landed, a small message popped up in front of her. 'This is a one time event. Once you participate you will be unable to attempt again this year. Would you like to proceed?' She took one deep breath before clicking accept. The words disappeared and she slowly walked forward.
The cave was dark, so she used the flaming hands spell to light the way. The further she went, the more difficult it got to breath. The air was thin and stuffy. The tunnel soon opened into a large chamber with a massive pool of lava.
“Welcome challenger!” a voice yelled, echoing through the chamber. Just as she expected, now would come the easy part. “As one who admires the strength of the dragons as well as the speed of the angels, a special trial has been prepared for you!”
Asura froze. “My angel class affects this?”
“Prepare for the challenge!”
“What? What's changed? The dragon power challenge is supposed to just be a hydra!” She nervously watched the lava, awaiting the appearance. Slowly, a large green reptile's head arose from the burning lake.
“Oh, I guess it was just commen... commen... tar...y...” She let out a soft whimper as three more heads slowly rose from the lava, all attached to one body. “Oh, please no,” she said with a squeak before spreading out her wings and drawing both weapons. “You're supposed to just have one head!” The first head lunged at her. Asura jumped up, using her wings to catch extra air, and landed on the back of its neck when it crashed into the ground. She raced down the neck as two heads charged at her. The first one missed her by a long shot, but the second one came straight at her. She jumped to the side and took off as the reptiles head went straight through the others neck.
“Well that's one down,” she said proudly once the decapitated head fell into the lava below. Moments later, a new head grew out of the stub. “Oh, come on!” she said before another head lunged at her. She weaved around the heads as all four of them bit and snapped at her. Up, down, left, up again, over and over she was forced to evade the dangerous fangs while she tried to think of a plan. “Think! What was it that hydra's hate? Cats? Dogs? Rocks? Yes! I just have to bury them in rocks!”
With a burst of speed she flew straight up. Gripping Excalibur and Scalemorne tightly in her hands she began to trail the blades through the roof while rapidly weaving around. The hydra's heads continued to snap and bite at her, but her speed allowed her to keep evading them so long as she moved fast and randomly. Her blades cut through the stones above, weakening them, until finally the hydra's head slamming into the roof with a deafening crack.
Asura tucked in her wings and dove down towards the rocky floor of the room before the roof collapsed behind her. Rocks fell and crashed. The hydra let out angry shrieks and writhed in anger and pain. She landed hard, rolling around on the ground, and lifted her hands as best she could. “Earth dome!” The ground lifted up around her and encased her in a covering of stone and dirt before she skidded into the back of it. Her body ached from the skid burns, but it beat being buried in rock.
She slowly got to her feet and put her ear to the dome and listened for the rock fall to stop. Once it did she lifted her hands up. “Rock spear!” A spear of rock shot out through the dome and created a small hole for her to crawl out through after gathering her weapons.
Asura stood on top of the rubble and smirked at the buried hydra. There was still a good chunk of roof left, but a few tons of stone had fallen onto the creature. “Hah! Bet you didn't see that coming, did you? Did you think all I could do was angel and dragon spells? Holy beast is my next one! So nyeh! I got plenty of... plenty of... mommy...” The hydra's massive heads were slowly beginning to emerge from under the rubble. “Oh, this isn't fair!” she yelled before taking off into the air.
All four of the hydra's heads turned towards her before opening their mouths. They didn't lunge, which left her confused. Until she saw the orange glow from the back of their throats and she dove, just narrowly avoiding the wall of flame as it passed over head. Asura let out another startled shriek as she tried to put out the small flame on the tips of her wings.
Once again the heads began to bite and snap at her, massive fangs narrowly avoiding tearing into her body. She moved right out of the way of one, but a second later another one struck out and caught her in its jaws. In a single massive movement she was swallowed by the creature. She held her breath before slamming both sword and axe into the creature. “Flaming body!” She got a mouth full of nasty fluids, but flames erupted around her body and seared the monster's flesh before she cut her way out. She crawled o
ut, her axe falling from her hands, and took to the air while the flames surrounded her, evaporating the nasty liquids while she coughed and hacked. The neck fell into the lava and went completely limp, lava pouring into the open wound.
“Wait, they aren't immune to fire? EEK!” She ducked under another burst of flame once her spell wore off. “You live in lava and shoot out flames!” She charged down and looped around one of the creature's necks. “It's cause dragon's use fire magic, isn't it? Fine then! We'll play that way! Flaming body!” Flames enveloped her once again while she dove down, straight into the lava. The flame didn't completely protect her while she charged into its underbelly, small burns appearing around her body. She drove Excalibur straight up into the creature's underbelly while quickly racing her way back out from the lava. “Restoration!” She yelled once the flames died from around her. The creature above howled in anger and pain while its heads writhed. She kept going, using her sword to slash more and more holes in the beast while she crawled along its exposed body. “Fireball!” she yelled before she plunged her left hand into the creature, exploding the flames within it.
The massive monster let out a final roar of pain and rage before its three remaining heads shot out straight, and then collapsed into the lava. She flew back towards the piece of dry land before collapsing on the shore. She groaned and glanced towards the hydra's sinking body. “Oh yeah. Who's the boss? I'm the boss! I totally kicked your butt...” She groaned before laying down and panting from exhaustion. She was covered in sweat and the place was far too hot and humid to properly catch her breath.
After a few moments of restless panting, she sat up with a grunt. “Still easier than the angel race.” The last piece of hydra was disappearing under the lava's surface before the lake began to harden and turn to igneous rock. 'Quest complete!' formed in front of her in large golden letters before she slowly got to her feet. A massive golden elephant fell from above. It was missing it's right tusk, instead having a silver axe lodged into it. She slowly advanced and gripped the axe in her left hand and yanked.
The words 'Master weapon: Parashu' formed in front of her before it's stats popped up. “Wow...” she said softly. Its stats were about what she expected, very high damage with a toggle to enable or disable the explosions. There was a second toggle option, marked ???, that B4hamutt hadn't mentioned. She clicked on it and the weapon disappeared. “What? Hey! I just... I just... oh... wow...” She gasped as she looked at Excalibur. It's damage had gone up and it was now showing the explosive ability, the cleaving ability AND the ??? toggle. She squealed before she raced towards the exit.
------
“--And then I just click it again and boom, I have both a sword and an axe! Not only that, if I do this, Excalibur can get the abilities of both weapons!” Asura told the gathered players as they stood around her in the guild meeting hall. She had logged off almost as soon as she passed the test, since her parents insisted she got plenty of rest between sessions. When she returned she headed straight to the guild hall to see who else had passed.
Their guild now held over a dozen masters, though Scalios hadn't come on to try yet and B4hamutt was in the middle of his test. Plenty of their players had managed to take the challenges and acquired their first master hood. To be honest, they weren't too hard, considering all the information out now. But the first time they happened they had caught most people unprepared and players either hadn't leveled enough or choked during the test, so only a handful had ended up passing in the first year.
Despite all the new masters, she could almost taste their jealousy at her second mastery as well as new weapon. She loved every second of it. “But there is something even cooler. Watch this!” She flipped through the menus until both Excalibur and Parashu formed in her hands. With a few more menu pushes the axe transformed into a perfect replica of her sword. “I don't have to carry a spare around any more. It can turn into whatever weapon I want! Well... an axe or a sword. Excalibur can do the same thing now.” She was adoring the gasps of awe. “Best of all, look at this.” She pushed a few buttons and then her body glowed as a white light coated her skin. A pure, magical armor shaped like dragon scales.
“So what are you going to master next?” 5t4r asked. He had managed to make his mastery as well this time.
“Two words. Exploding. Arrows. I'm going fae next,” Asura said as she pretended to pull an arrow back and shoot an invisible bow. “It's going to be awesome!”
“Have you leveled the fae class any?” he asked.
“Well, no. Not really,” she mumbled before she coughed into her hand and looked off to the side. “I, uhhh, was planning to master holy beast next, since I figured the tunneling ability would be nice. I can level it up easy enough. Besides, how hard could a bow be?”
“... You've never used a bow before?” 5t4r asked before he crossed his arms and scolded her.
“Nope! Don't give me that look, I never said I was any good with a bow.”
“You certainly implied it! Telling me how I shouldn't be using it because it was bad for angels and all that. I thought you had at least tried it.”
“Oh relax,” she said before she reached out to pat his head. “You wanted to level fae anyway, right? We can group some time. It'll be fun. As long as we're not flying, shooting arrows will be easy. Less wind.”
“How about we go now,” he said with annoyance before grabbing her hand tugging her.
“Err, well, I guess!” Asura said nervously as she stumbled along. “Why are you so mad?” She waved back to the rest of the group while they watched.
“I'm not mad, I'm annoyed,” 5t4r said. Once they were outside the building his fingers moved through the air and his wings disappeared. His features remained almost the same, except his skin got a bit darker, his ears got pointier and his armor changed from the white angelic full plate to thin strips of leather. A flimsy wooden bow formed on his back before he glanced at her. “Well?”
“Huh? Oh! Right. Of course.” Her fingers moved out and she initiated the class change. Rather than thick metal covering her body, she instead had thin green leaf mail that covered all but her wrists, head, and feet. Thin leather boots went up to just below her knees. Her wings changed to ones like a butterfly with red, purple and blue fragments of color. She flapped them a few times before grinning. “You should enable your wings too. It's pretty.”
“Maybe. So what does the dragon ability look like?” His voice still sounded very annoyed.
“Hold on. Activating... now.” Her voice was shrill with excitement. For a moment nothing happened until her skin began to get itchy. She looked down and thin leafs began to form over her body, covering her inch by inch. Only her head remained unaffected. “Weird... It's just like my armor. I wonder if that's intentional?” she asked before tugging on the front of her armor and looking down. It was green even there.
“That's kinda cool. Maybe you don't need to wear armor with it then? Anyway, let's go,” 5t4r said before he tugged on her hand some more.
“... You do realize once we leave the guild hall we'll be in an area with monsters far above our levels. We're going to have to fly there if we want to avoid getting slaughtered,” Asura struggled to keep the laughter out of her voice.
“I... I knew that. Come on, let's go.” A moment later the fae wings formed on his back and they took to the air.
“We'll have to do the starter quests for fae's first. Do you know the way to the fae capital?” Asura asked after a few minutes of travel.
“... Not really. No,” he said with a pathetic sigh.
“Okay, navigate through the menu's to the map and...” She explained as they soon readjusted their course and flew off towards the fae lands.
------
Asura slowly exhaled before she pulled the bow string taut. When the string was fully pulled, the arrow magically formed in the deadly weapon. Her breathing stopped when she took aim at a massive stag. The beast was ignorant of any coming dangers as it nibbled at a few berries in a
bush. Sweat beaded on her forehead before she finally released the arrow. It flew straight at the beast and lodged itself... in a tree about eight feet away. The stag turned and ran as 5t4r burst into laughter besides her. “That's the fifth one! How can you be so bad at this?”
“S-shut up! It's harder than it looks!” she yelled as her cheeks flared. The two were perched on a massive branch, almost five feet wide, attached to a tree taller and wider than most sky scrapers. All around them were trees and woodland creatures. Far above, narrow wood bridges were strewn about with small forts all over, creating the fae capital, Yggdrasil. Their first quest was to show they had the capability to be hunters in the woods, basically killing and harvesting a stag.
Unfortunately, the angel-turned-fae was learning something very important. She could not hit the broad side of a barn if it was blindfolded and slowly meandering towards her. 5t4r had gotten his stag ages ago and was now keeping her 'motivated' with a helpful slew of 'encouraging' words.
“Why even level this class? I mean, it's not like leveling the fae is that important. I doubt you'll be able to max your bow skills at this rate anyway. Wouldn't it be better to just-- eep!” The fae squeaked when Asura grabbed him by the collar and yanked him close.
“One more word about this. Just. One. More,” she said with a growl. “And not only am I going to master this class and the bow so I can get my armor-piercing, exploding arrows. But the first thing I am going to do is find and shoot one straight up your ass. Understand?” She growled with bared teeth.
5t4r nodded rapidly. “Yes ma'am. Mind if I ask one thing?”
“So long as you remember just how far you'd have to drop if I throw you off here.”
“Point taken. Why not master holy beast or leviathan next? If you master fae and dragon, won't that switch your allegiance?”
“Possibly. But who cares about faction? They haven't ever done anything with it. Besides, exploding arrows are going to be awesome,” Asura said before letting loose another arrow, falling far short of her target.
Landasy Reality: Angel's Escape Page 12