That’s one reason I didn’t trust stereotypes, either in games or in the real world. Sure, most of them are around for a reason. Barbarians get the reputation as musclebound idiots because, frankly, a lot of them are. Drow get the evil backstabber reputation because as a race they tend to be evil and backstab eachother relentlessly. If someone’s wearing robes and has a big stick, he’s probably a wizard. And the list goes on. So, stereotypes aren’t a bad place to start, when evaluating someone. Problem is, too many people stop there, and don’t do the follow-up, which allows those like me, who are clever enough to subvert the stereotypes, to take advantage of idiots.
As we traveled, I checked the maps I’d bought before leaving town. The quest involving the dwarf adventuring company mentioned a Lost Vault. There were a couple ruins between here and Blacklake. I was betting that one of them contained our rogue slavers, and another would hide the entrance to this vault. Hopefully, we’d be able to find traces of the undead before we came too close.
Fortunately, ‘luck’ was on my side again. It was about midday, and we were about to stop for lunch when we saw a wagon camped along the side of the road, with a man and two women, all humans, sitting by a fire, heating coffee (or something that smelled like it), and getting food ready to eat. Seeing our procession, the man waved us over. As we got closer, I saw that the man was the only one not wearing a collar.
Wilmer Brew
Human Male Demonkin Human Male
Level 20 Fighter / Merchant Level 40 Blademaster (Fighter) / Rogue
Title: Honest One Titles: Manslayer, Sadist, Human Bane, Deceiver
Zada Rule
Human Female High Human Female
Level 10 Rogue Level 60 Assassin (Rogue) / Blademistress (Fighter)
Title: Slave Titles: Swiftblade, Stealthy, Human Bane, Slave, Broken One
Isabel Dengra
Human Female Faetouched Human Female
Level 10 Priestess Level 50 Inferno Mage (Flame Sorceress) / Priestess
Title: Slave Titles: Pyromaniac, Sadist, Slave, Masochist, Broken One
This was the first time I had seen a fake status with Observe. Fortunately, my habit of using Observe on everyone had leveled it up enough that I could pierce it. I’d heard that once you got Disguise to Intermediate, you could create a false status for yourself, but I hadn’t seen it before, and I hadn’t bothered to work on Disguise much, myself. There were also items you could get, enchanted rings and the like, which would display a false status, but you needed the disguise skill at Intermediate to enchant them, so…
At any rate, it looked like we had found the first of these slavers. I spoke through party chat, to have the girls scan for other enemies in the area, and Severa took the distraction of everyone dismounting to go into stealth. I moved over to the fire, and sat down opposite the man. “Well met, sir. And what is a merchant such as yourself doing in these parts? I’ve heard there were many dangers on the roads, ever since that the King’s forces were put in disarray by the events in the capitol.”
The man laughed, and said, “Yes, things have been what you might call ‘interesting’ around here the last few months, but still, a merchant has to ply his trade, you know? And things aren’t getting any better. Ahead, about a day and a half from Blacklake, the road runs within a mile or two of the ruined Tower of Ischall. While we were passing, I saw what looked like a hundred or more of the undead gathered by the tower’s base. We were just lucky that something was drawing them to the tower, so they didn’t notice us. I’ll have to start hiring guards for my next trip!”
Katrin Black
Shadeling Human Female
Level 50 Assassin (Rogue) / Shadow Sorceress
Titles: Stealthy, Sadist, Human Bane, Manslayer, Slave, Broken One
I was about to reply, when I saw a blade flash in the corner of my eye, and heard a scream of pain. And there was the fourth member of this party, a slash across her wrist forcing her to drop the slave collar she had been planning to put around my neck. I snapped my fingers, and Black tentacles rose up. As my mastery of the spell increased, they’d grown to twenty in number, and covered a larger area. Now, they split up, five each, to entrap the man and his slaves, bringing them to their hands and knees. I nodded to Yukiko, and she dispatched the man, decapitating him with her sword.
Yukiko blinked, looking at a notification, and then said, “Master, I have taken ownership of the man’s slaves, there are four of them.” She turned and looked at the other three. “Where is Gnag Bonechewer?”
Zada sighed. “In the fort, Mistress. He is a goblin, and Master wished him to remain behind, crafting poisons and other things to sell at the market.”
I opened a map of the area, and said, “And where is this fort?”
When the three hesitated to speak, I glanced at Yukiko, who barked at them to answer the question. Zada seemed to be the spokeswoman for these three, as she pointed out one of the ruins that overlooked the road, Terrorbane Hold, an ancient outpost from before the Scourge. It had not lived up to its name, and was left to ruin in the centuries since. Still, it was set into a rock face, making it a fairly defensible position.
“What kind of fighting force do the slavers have? There should be nineteen of them, and how many more slaves would be effective in a fight?”
“Our former master was one of the most paranoid of the group, with three combat slaves. The others all have one or two, as well as a few that are simply bedwarmers. Gorthang has five combat slaves, plus his harem. Say fifty combatants all together? Some of those would be left guarding the stock, to keep them from making trouble. We were about to make a run into one of the black markets to sell off the shipment in a few days.”
I nodded, and then said, “All right, less than four to one against us? That’ll work fine. And every master we take out will remove their slaves from play. To keep it interesting, I’ll tell you all this. When this is over, I’ll buy any slaves belonging to you personally that you gained while we are in pursuit of this quest at a flat rate of ten gold per head. Since most of you are my slaves, or slaves of my slaves, that’s a helluvalot better than you could expect otherwise, I think. Also, the person who captures the most slaves will get another hundred gold as a prize.”
This caused everyone to laugh, but I saw them all getting serious. Having an actual stake in the outcome beyond simply living or dying would cause them to fight just that extra bit more. Competition always did that to people. And it wasn’t like we were going to be in that bad a situation. Sure, it was about four to one against us, but that was only if we fought fair in a straight battle. No way that was going to happen, not until we evened the odds a bit, or even turned them to our favor.
Severa, Katrin, Kamla, and I moved forward under stealth. As expected, the vampire was quite proficient at stalking prey and her senses allowed her to sense the blood of living creatures, which made the four of us an ideal group for dealing with sentries. We caught two patrols in the forest, both a master and slave. In each case, the master died never knowing what hit him, and the slave was forced to follow our lead. That was how Severa and Katrin both got on the board with two and three, respectively, though Yukiko still had the early lead with four.
When we got to the fortress itself, there was only a single guard and her slave, up in a watchtower. And they were… otherwise occupied, given the way the slaver’s breasts were flopping about as she leaned over the tower’s railing. Wrath of Demons was in my hand, and I pulled back the bowstring with a hellfire arrow. I stilled my breath, lined up my shot, and fired, aiming for the woman’s head. Even if it wouldn’t kill her outright, it would keep her from issuing orders to the slave currently fucking her. But things went better than I intended. Apparently, the slave did something extra good, which caused the woman to throw her head back and open her mouth to scream or moan something, just as the arrow got to her. The arrow struck down through her mouth, and pierced her heart. She was dead before she knew it, and now I was on the board with four, though it s
eemed they all had men’s names. Ah well.
Moving forward, I ordered the slave to get dressed, and bring his former mistress’s body down. While we secured the area, the rest of the group arrived behind us, and we formed up into more balanced assault groups. The three combat slaves we just captured were commanded to guard the entrance, in case others attacked. Sixteen slavers remained on my quest log, which meant we had already done a quarter of the work.
Those continuing inside split into four groups of three. Myself, Kylana, and Gadriel formed the first group. We had the highest damage-dealer, a powerful support mage, and the best healer. Our goal was to find the boss, and end him. Yukiko, Della, and Severa were tasked with finding the slave pens, and eliminating the guards there. Hrozne, Kamla, and Nithroel would form group three, and secure the artisans and craftsmen. And the three new slaves would be the last group, hunting any of the masters they could. This spread us out, but it also prevented the enemy from coordinating and drawing all their forces together, where it might be enough to beat us.
With a whispered command, we set off into the fortress. At the first intersection, the groups began splitting up, but we followed the instructions the new slaves gave us, to try and get to the boss as quickly as possible. I was confident we could beat him on his own, but if he could reinforce any of the other groups, then it may prove problematic. Kylana gained the first kill of our little group, as she used a nasty bit of transmutation to turn the slaver’s blood to acid. I was going to need to make sure and update my protections against that, because it did NOT look like a fun way to die, and Kylana couldn’t be the only one to use such magic.
There was only one more flunkie and his slave before we got to the Boss’s chambers, and I got the kill there, my blades cutting the man’s head from his shoulders before he could finish drawing his blade. I checked the quest status, and was pleased to see the count had dropped to 7/20 slavers remaining. The others were having good hunting as well, it seemed. But I put those thoughts aside, as we had arrived at the Boss’s room.
Gorthang Bloodmaul
Hobgoblin Male
Level 60 Demon Tamer (Warlock) / Battle Raper (Dominator)
Titles: Sadist, Sexecutioner, Human Bane, Goblin Bane, Undead Bane, Manslayer, Ladykiller
Kicking open the door, I found myself face to face with an ugly, yellow-green skinned creature with pointed ears and long, matted hair. He smelled like he rolled in garbage while having sex. Not a great combo, mind you. He was currently on the bed, naked and extricating himself from a pile of at least four women. Five other women stood guard around the room, and they all were geared up, at least.
With a cocky smile, I stepped forward, blades at the ready. “Gorthang, I presume? The Slavers’ Guild asked me to deliver a message to you. They have decided that they’re no longer going to tolerate your continued existence.”
Chapter 66 – Bloodmaul and Shyrl
Gorthang, dressed in nothing but literally what he was born with, growled at me as he reached over to grab a nasty looking two-handed maul. “You insolent whelp! I’m going to kill you slow, so your pets there can take turns begging me for a ride just to keep you alive a little while longer!”
Kylana looked at me, and said, “Can we kill him now, please? His breath stinks all the way over here.”
“You bitch! I’ll make you regret that!”
I ignored the naked hobgoblin for the moment, and looked at my companions. “Kylana, conjure a wall to keep his pets from interfering, or letting him get to you. Keep it going as long as you can. Gadriel, give what buffs you can to spellcasting and MP regeneration. I’ll take the ugly one.” That was the plan, anyways.
Owning slaves allowed you to amplify your combat force, but if you were killed by another sentient, they gained ownership. Well, that’s how it worked for NPCs. I don’t know if it had come up at any point so far for Travelers. I’d need to find out that information, since it could be very bad if someone PKed me.
Anyways, as I stepped forward, translucent walls of purple light rose up, sectioning the room to keep Gorthang’s guards isolated, and forming a ring in the center of the room, where Gorthang and I would have our little bout. Seeing this, Gorthang uttered a curse, and summoned his familiar. It was a pit fiend, a four-armed, heavily muscled creature bred for battle in the endless wars of the Abyss. Whereas Kylana was the more bookish sort, this fiend was purely a warrior.
It was strong enough to wield a greatsword in each of its four hands, making it a truly nasty foe to go up against for someone who wasn’t a brute-force fighter like myself. OK, so my STR was pretty damn good, but I was still a CHA-type, and relied on DEX more than STR in a fight. I couldn’t risk attempting to parry one of those blows, to say nothing of blocking them. I would have to dodge them all.
Fortunately, though, I had the Soulsight skill. In addition to allowing me to see the souls of the recently departed, it acted as a kind of aura reading skill for anything with a soul, allowing me to roughly judge intent. Combined with actual experience from both Zayn and Torgan, I was confident I could read the Fiend well enough that I wasn’t worried about his blades. Not much.
Honestly, either one of these enemies wouldn’t be much trouble for me in a straight fight. Sure, the idea of a spellcaster who focused on heavy, two-handed weapons like that maul was weird, but if he had the stats and skills for it, then more power to him. A heavy weapon was dangerous because of the strength and weight behind the blow. You risked broken arms and shattered weapons trying to block or parry such an attack. But they were, generally, slower than an agility-type’s attacks, making them easier to dodge, if you knew their reach and could limit the field of battle.
As the fiend charged, Gorthang began readying a spell. I could tell that it was some kind of buff, probably buffing himself to substitute for the armor the walls had cut him off from (and that I wouldn’t have given him the time to equip, anyways). With the walls of force in place, our arena was roughly equivalent to a square fifteen feet on a side. I had very little room to dodge, but my enemies couldn’t use their best attacks in such close quarters, because of the reduced room to swing those big weapons.
Still, I couldn’t let the enemy control the flow of battle. Leaping out of the way o the fiend’s blades, I kicked off the wall, and then rolled to my feet, now having placed Gorthang between myself and the fiend. A flick of my wrist in passing caused the hobgoblin to drop his casting and curse in the goblin tongue as I came within an inch of ‘unmanning’ him. Yes, I cheat. Get over it.
Laughing at the hobgoblin’s displeasure, I continued circling, keeping the fiend from getting a decent strike from around the hobgoblin. Meanwhile, my Hex ability, Warlock’s Curse, Cloak of Chaos, and Shadow of Death had all combined to cause hell for my enemies. A few glancing blows from my blades had dropped the hobgoblin’s attack speed by 25%, making evasion child’s play. Warlock’s Curse dropped his CHA by 10%, reducing his defense from the Dominator class. A glancing blow from the fiend shaved off two hundred of my hit points, but temporarily inflicted it with the ‘Blind’ debuff. And Shadow of Death was doing solid DoT on Gorthang, but also made my attacks hit as crits more often, and I was the kind of bastard that already aimed for crits.
Of course, it wasn’t a one-sided slaughter, either. Gorthang got a good hit in when I had to dodge a wild swing by the fiend, dealing almost a thousand damage, but also giving me the ‘broken arm’ debuff, causing my wakizashi to fall to the floor since I could no longer hold anything in that arm. Magic could remove the debuff, but my healer was busy, and I wasn’t about to have them start dropping the walls so casting could occur, and leave them open to the attacks of these two.
I slashed out with Munsuraisa, using the crescent slash technique to give Gorthang something else to think about. And then I shifted to my dragonform. As a Warlock, Gorthang had some resistance against my Hellfire breath, but it still hurt like hell, given from the way the bastard roared in pain. Having hellfire on the ol’ bait and tackle wasn’
t something most people would like to experience, no matter what. The fiend didn’t even bat an eye at that.
I darted forward, using my long neck in this form to strike, snakelike, with my jaws, closing them on Gorthang’s throat. The warlock struggled to try and pry my fangs from his throat, but it was in vain, as I shook him like a rag doll, ending his life. As I saw the experience come up in the combat log, I noticed that the ‘broken arm’ debuff stayed with me when I shifted. Annoying, but expected. I looked up in time to see the fiend, its master slain, disappear into smoke.
I spat Gorthang out before shifting back to my normal form, and motioning Kylana to drop the walls, which I just now noticed were impressively soundproofed. Kylana and Gadriel stepped up to my side, and Gadriel healed me up, I checked the status of the quest.
Hunt Slavers on Blacklake Road
A band of slavers has been operating on the Blacklake Road between Fathon and the border town of Blacklake, on the edge of the Horde Tribeslands. They have been operating independently of the Slavers’ Guild, and are not under its protection. The Slavers’ Guild wishes to make an example of these renegades.
Rules-Free VRMMO Life: Volume VI: Taking the Show on the Road Page 4