"The Troll King chain. We just might get some decent loot before the tournament starts."
"Pffft! There’s no chance we can do that in such a short time. Just farming the Trolls, Troll Warriors, Troll Berserkers and Troll Shamans will take us days, if not a week. But you’re more than welcome to try."
"All right then. Let’s hunt some Trolls."
29
We found ourselves standing at the edge of the Elemental Marshes. It was an enormous area that stretched for hours in every direction, filled to the brim with all kinds of monsters and elemental catastrophes. Goblins, Orcs, Trolls, Ogres, Snake kin and the like were only a part of what the hellish place had to offer. Our destination? Thunder Marsh, at the far end of this place.
The area itself was arranged rather strangely; it seemed like a clock, more or less. All the elements switched places depending on what time of day it was, and every seven days, they were rearranged randomly. All of that I learned just by looking at the pop-up window at our arrival. Oh goody, I really had something to look forward to.
"Guys, I’d prefer if you talked less once we get there. We have no idea what awaits us, so keep it down with the provocations, jokes and harassment," I said and pushed Dineth forward.
"What? Me first? That’s so lame!"
"Shut up bro! You want my pretty face to be bashed in by an ogre?"
He looked back to Renee and nodded frantically.
"Hell yes I would. That way, Aiden wouldn’t be interested in you anymore."
"I’ll always be interested in her, if only for Maelstrom if nothing else," I joked and pushed him again. "No, hush!" I said just as he was about to talk back. He sighed and donned his shield and ax.
"Here goes nothing," he murmured and stepped slowly across the only path in between the gooey patches of muck. In all honesty, there was only one path we could take. The center one.
"Larina, please take the back. Scarlet you’re behind me, Renee in the middle with Katya, Monica and Nikita just in front of Larina. Tanks outside with DPS and heal closest to them."
"Oh? Who would have thought we had a smartypants for our clan leader?" Katya chuckled. Scarlet chimed in, but they were quickly shut up by Nikita who brushed their shoulders as she walked past them.
"The hell was that for Nicky?" Scarlet demanded.
"You heard him. Get in line."
I didn’t like when someone talked down to my girls, but they needed to be brought back to earth sometimes. Otherwise, they would get out of hand pretty quickly.
"Aiden!" Katya groaned.
"Get in line baby. I don’t want to die trying to rescue any of my princesses and having to wait for a couple hours in limbo."
"R-right. Exactly," she replied and hugged me real quick before she took her place.
The first signs of wildlife came a couple minutes later, when a couple creatures with human bodies, lizard and snake-like heads, claws and tails ganged up on us. Dineth was the first to respond as a number of arrows struck his shield from three sides. He used one of his new abilities, Stalwart and hardened his skin. The effect was rather astonishing from up close, it was as if someone had rubbed him down in oil.
"I’ve got twelve o clock! Lay down fire to three and nine!" I ordered and rushed past Dineth. Larina ran up to the front and took a side, creating a shield from either side for the squishier classes. At least I didn’t have to worry about them and could go all out, testing my new weapon to the fullest.
Seven monsters awaited me. I scanned them quickly before we met and was caught off guard.
The male lizardman looked like a, well, human lizard. It held a shield in its left and a wickedly curved blade in its right. The green head and the long snout ended in three rows of long and sharp teeth. The female counterpart had snakes for hair and a yellow, autumn-like skin. A bow was strapped around their right shoulders while they held a number of arrows in their left hands.
"You guys look as bad as you smell," I yelled and closed the distance, deflecting two arrows with my claws, but getting hit by the third. My shoulder ached like it had been struck by a hammer, but I pressed on and released my swarm of bats. Their attention on me had shifted momentarily, and I used it to my advantage, sliding my right claw under the Gorgon’sright armpit. She dropped the bow and stumbled into the middle Gorgon who was busy paralyzing my bats. One by one, they fell to the ground.
"Oh no you don’!" I yelled again and activated my three hit combo. The middle Gorgon dropped dead, accompanied by the right one. All four warriors rounded on me in turn and ignored the remaining bats. Two attacks struck home and cost me a quarter of my health bar, followed by two poison stacks.
You have sustained 2.221 damage from Lizardman: You have sustained 1.799 damage from Lizardman.
You have sustained Poison.
You have sustained Poison.
I cursed and darted out of their midst, then rammed my claws in the last Gorgon’s back and finished her off with a Vampiric Bite, restoring some of my health. What happened next was annoying, to say the least. All four of the male mobs started hissing and slamming their blades against their shields. Right there before my eyes, they grew a head taller and more muscular. Another check showed their health had risen by thirty percent.
"Guys? Don’t kill the Gorgons first. The lizardmen get a buff of sort if you do," I said in clan chat and rushed back into the melee.
"We know!" Dineth replied. I turned my head back to see them getting pummeled badly. If I let these be, they’d follow me and we would have a bigger problem as a whole. No, they were normal mobs after all, even though they were insanely strong. So I went with it and attacked the four, dancing and twirling around in a ballet of death. For every attack that went through, I got hit in turn.
"Don’t take them all on at once. You have no chance," Nikita said.
"Yeah, no shit!" I called back and withdrew, then glanced back once more. They had more or less taken care of their end, but the four before me weren’t playing games and lunged at me again. The only reason I survived was because of Larina, who’d stepped in between us. She deflected two blows which I wouldn’t have evaded and slammed her shield into the group. The four toppled over and a bright light washed over them as Larina’s sword started glowing brightly
"Excalibur!" she screamed and slashed her lit up sword in their direction. A cone of light shot out from the blade and washed over all four Lizardmen, stunning and damaging them. To my surprise, they only lost about a third of their health each, but wouldn’t be moving anytime soon.
"Step back!" Renee said as a gust of wind slammed into the group of Lizardmen followed by a flame pillar. A raging inferno burned them for a few long seconds, followed by Katya’s only AoE, the thunderstorm. The lizardmen were left at around a mere ten percent when Nikita rushed in and sealed the deal, finishing them off with a single blow each.
"So fierce, the new girl I mean," Dineth commented and put his hand on my shoulder. "I will have to talk to her. Maybe she’d prefer a big Orc over a puny Vampire," He laughed.
"If only," I muttered. I got a few stares in return for the comment, but no one addressed the elephant in the room, or rather the Vamp in the swamp.
"You guys ain’t half bad," Nikita said as she walked up to us and handed Scarlet something. The Fairy’s eyes lit up and she started squealing as if she was a pig in a mud bath.
"Nikiiiiii! I love you!"
I frowned and opened up a private channel to her.
"What did she give you?"
"A Gorgon soul! It’s fucking amazing!"
"Right. What did it add to your skills this time?"
"Teehee! Check for yourself!"
"Huh? Check what?"
"Your buffs silly!"
"Oh." I looked up at my bar and frowned. An ugly Gorgon head sat next to the other buffs. I willed it to open up and coughed in surprise. A permanent party buff to the male members of the party. It gave a whopping 15% to health and 20% to poison resistance. It must‘ve been Sylvia. She n
eeded to buy the girls in order for them to accept her, and what better way to do so than by offering them gifts.
"Oh indeed. And my own stats got a nice bump as well. I gained two skills, one of which is a debuff called Malice. It lowers the defense of group of mobs, and the other is Paralysis, which obviously paralyses mobs. One at a time though, but still, all in all I’m sold!"
"Hmm. That’s great to hear babe, but on what are you sold?"
"On Nikita! She said she wanted to join us and be part of our little group. She would help us win the tournament in return for her, well, being with us."
"Right. And what does ‘with us’ mean in this case?"
"Oh, you know. Have sex and stuff? I mean, having so many girls around, it’s only natural you’ll be forgetting about me more and more, no?"
I was caught off guard. She was right in every sense of the word, but was it really that bad? I didn’t think so personally, but then again, I was biased.
"We need to rework some of this once the tournament is over. Can you wait a few days?"
"Wait a few days? Time is all I got, Aiden."
"I know," I said and took her in my arms. I could feel a couple stares on my back, but I didn’t care.
"Remember what you promised me when you saved me from that death loop?"
"Yeah, I do. We just got sidetracked along the way I guess. Not that it’s a good excuse, but whatever, it’s not like I can turn back time. However, I can change what happens in the future. But we’ll need to talk about it, all of us, once we’re done with the tourney. Can you wait that long?"
She shrugged and pushed out of my embrace.
"I have to, no?"
An eerie silence from behind us forced me to turn to the group.
"Let’s go find the Trolls. None of us wants to be here any longer than we have to, right?"
30
It took us most of the day to find our way to the center, in between the fighting and resting. Every couple dozen steps, a new batch of enemies ambushed us, but they kept bringing new skills and variations into the mix. Paralysis, Fear, Poison and Stone were only a few of the debuffs that afflicted us.
The center of the clock-like area wasn’t that large, only a quarter mile across, compared to the ten miles it had taken us to get there. At the dead center of the smaller area, a wooden building stood tall. Five NPCs milled around and did nothing for most of the time. Two farmers, the innkeeper and two guards. One was male and the other female, but both were clad in Dragoon armor.
"Greetings travelers," the male guard said as we approached. His companion stood at his side and had a wicked looking bow at the ready.
"Greetings, Maewinn," I replied and stopped in front of him.
"Are you here to do battle with one of the feral races?"
It was more a quest prompt than anything else, so I acknowledged.
"Yes, sir. We are here to do the Troll King quest."
The guard nodded his head slowly and turned to his companion.
"You can lower your weapon, love. These fair adventurers are here to rid this world of a great evil. Please, kill 100 Trolls to get access to the second quest. Good luck, travelers!"
I accepted the quest and it updated for the whole group automatically.
You have received a quest: Destruction of the Troll King
Quest description: Kill 100 Trolls: Quest reward: Lore, Experience, Quest chain
"A hundred? Just that many?" Dineth snapped. "Those things are a bitch to kill!"
"See? That’s why I told you it wouldn’t be possible to do it before the tournament," Nikita said.
"You’re not helping," I added and frowned. I had no idea how strong they were, but if the buggers were tough, we would have to keep coming back in between bouts. "Doesn’t matter. Do they have a weakness?"
"Fire. Nothing else," Renee replied. "I studied most mobs before picking a class. See, the reason why I went with it in the first place was because I’m always useful against anything we might face."
"No shit. With Maelstrom alone, I’d be more than happy to have you around."
"Hey, I just got an idea," Renee said mischievously. "How much health do they have? Around a hundred K, right?"
"And how much can your Maelstrom do?" I asked.
"I don’t know. It consists of four elements, and they are only really weak to one. I mean, magic will do much better than physical damage in any case."
"And if you add your own AoE to the mix, Katya? It’s pretty devastating, and when Renee uses her Flame Pillar, your own attack turns to fire damage?"
"Yeah, it does," Katya replied. "I think I could do anywhere up to forty thousand with her own attack. So Maelstrom only has to do somewhere around eighty?"
I smirked and rubbed my greedy paws.
"I sure miss your old class, Scarlet," I said and winked. "Those firestorms would sure come in handy about now."
"Yeah, but my malice negates twenty percent of their defenses. Elemental included."
"Fuck yes! I’m off to lure some Trolls!" Dineth roared happily and donned his shield. Just what was it with the shield and him removing it constantly?
"Hold on!" Larina called and ran after him. "I’ll take the left side, you do the right."
"Sure thing!" he replied and stomped toward a group of Trolls about two times his size. Shit, those things sure looked big now that I’d given them a better look. Luckily, it wouldn’t be me they’d be smashing with their clubs and gigantic hands.
For better or worse, I ran after Larina, worried she might get herself either killed or hurt. A glance at the other side told me that Dineth had gathered a sizeable crowd and was moving deeper into the marsh. Larina was at the third group and had used an aggro skill to generate threat, then ran at the fourth not waiting to be hit. Her train was already eighteen large, and growing by the group.
"Umm, guys? I don’t know about you, but how do you plan to keep them in place?" I asked and made way back to the group. Renee awaited on me with a sheepish look on her face.
"I umm… didn’t think so far ahead."
"Wait what? I’m getting pummeled to death here, and you have no means to take them off me when I arrive?" Dineth yelled angrily. "I’ll run you over with a Troll train!"
"Ice, no?" Nikita interrupted. "Ice will slow them down if you have a large enough AoE."
"Oh, yes! I usually don’t use it, as it hurts to cast that shit. A layer forms on my palms each time and I have to scrape it off."
"This game is messed up for us Deaders," I commented. "We can’t turn off our pain receptors. Fucking stinks!"
"Would you like some help with that?" Sylvia asked me in a private message. "I can turn them off for you, but then I have to turn off your pleasure receptors as well."
I scowled and stared at Nikita. The others gave me a strange look as if I’d gone crazy, so I turned away quickly.
"Can’t you keep turning them on and off?"
"No, I’m sorry. Once they’re off, no more turning them back on."
"Figures. Nothing in here is easy or normal, so why would this be?"
"I’d focus on the Trolls for now. Here they come," Sylvia said and disappeared from my head. I turned just in time to see the two tanks running toward us and a train of Trolls behind them. I had no idea how many they had lured, but the ground trembled under their combined power.
"Renee? Get up there somewhere," I said pointing up to a nearby tree, "so you can target them better. And you two, come in as an X so the mobs get stuck in each other."
"You really think we need a DPS class to tell us how to do our job?" Dineth snapped back. I sighed and leaned against a particularly large tree.
"Whatever. Just don’t die, okay?"
"Get ready," Larina said interrupting our joking around. "Five seconds, four, three…"
The two passed each other perfectly and thrust the two groups of Trolls against each other. An ice meteor struck the group, but I could see it clearly that it only hit a part of it. I tensed up,
ready to go in if need be so my ladies wouldn’t die, but a perfectly placed flame pillar drew the rest into the crowd.
Scarlet ran up to me and used my body as a ladder, jumped up and floated a couple feet above my head. I looked up only to find she wasn’t wearing any underwear again. She noticed and winked, then looked up again and cast her new skill, Malice. A purple and grey hue surrounded the Trolls and their skin seemed to crack in places as a new debuff appeared next to their names. Well, two actually. One lowered their physical, while the other lowered their magical defense.
An enormous storm cloud appeared overhead and blotted out the already dark day as four elements met and engulfed the horde. Torrents of flame, bolts of thunder, gusts of wind and shards of ice flew in all directions. Dineth had been standing too close, so it was no surprise when one of the shards struck him in the side. His health dropped a sick thirty seven percent, which was roughly most of my health. I gulped and stepped back and leaned against the tree for comfort.
"Die motherfuckers!" Renee screamed and burst out in a maniacal laughter. Right then and there, I saw the other Renee, the one she tried to hide from us, obviously.
"Hey sis! Get it together!" Dineth yelled and threw a rock at her. The piece of stone hit her straight in the chest, knocking her over the branch she was huddled on. Renee dropped like a sack of potatoes and snapped her neck against a large tree root she landed on. She died instantly. But then her health rose slightly, just a few points. Scarlet cast a healing spell on her immediately and brought her up to half again in mere seconds, seconds which we didn’t have.
The Troll horde started moving again and scattering in all directions, while some attacked our tanks. Katya released her AoE and managed to hit most of them. Renee got up in time to cast her flame pillar which turned the storm’s element to fire. Troll after Troll dropped dead. System messages chimed one after the other announcing experience gain. Oh fuck, that was something I totally forgot about. If some of us hit level 40, we wouldn’t be able to participate in the lowest clan tournament.
Hazard Online 2: Revenge Page 17