by Adam Horne
Yorrick and Zafira were both level twelve, and the other rogues were a mixture of eleven and twelve. All four of those in Kelath’s party were level ten. With their numbers, they wouldn’t have trouble from most of the enemy guards, but the higher level of the cleric could be a problem.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” said Kelath. “Througar, Elora, Galahad, and Yorrick are going to pose as a party that has come to find the dungeon. Zafira, I want you at the top of the stairs to attack the cleric when he runs up. Yorrick, once the fight starts, taunt the cleric so she’ll get her sneak attack and stun him when he casts healing spells. Of the other rogues, I want one of you on each of the wizards, and the two others should be close to our decoys. Decide amongst yourselves which of you goes where.
“I have a feeling their rogues will target Galahad first since he’s a healer, so focus attacks on one enemy at a time to kill them quickly. I’ll sneak in with the rogues and position myself to hit as many of the enemy as I can with bombs and poison. Using items on yourself doesn’t break stealth, so don’t be afraid to drink a second blindsight potion if you need to. I’ll wait to hit as many as possible with my first bomb, but once it goes off, you can attack at will. Everyone understand the plan?”
They all nodded and said they were ready.
“Good,” said Kelath. “Give the rogues about a minute to get into place, and then the rest of you can follow.”
Zafira, Kelath, and the rogues activated their stealth skill. After thirty seconds, they emerged from the trees among the small ruined town. Kelath drank his blindsight potion and the others did the same. Two of the rogues stayed behind at the edge of the forest to shadow their decoys when they emerged. The rest moved between the remains of destroyed buildings and approached the fallen temple. When they were close enough, he spotted three people skulking around the outside, occasionally shifting to different locations while remaining watchful of the area around them. He climbed onto a pile of rubble a short distance from the perimeter of the temple, while Zafira and the other three rogues continued inside.
From his higher vantage point, Kelath could see the forms of three more people crouched upon the crumbled walls of the temple. His rogues split up, with one going behind each of the three wizards. Zafira continued to the opening in the ground and chose a position where someone coming up the stairs wouldn’t see her, but she could easily attack. The potion wore off, and he lost sight of both his own people and the enemies hidden in the temple. He waited about ten seconds before drinking another potion, the last in his bag. With as many as they’d used, this would be their only shot at getting it right. Shortly thereafter, he caught sight of Yorrick between the broken walls of two buildings behind him.
The enemy scouts also noticed and moved to the side of the temple building closest to the encroaching party. They fanned out somewhat, with two on one side and one on the other. He readied a bomb and aimed it between the feet of the two standing next to each other. The wizards had all turned and were watching in the direction of the party. Once Elora was in range to cast spells at the rogues, Kelath launched his bomb. He became visible again, but if the rogues saw him, they didn’t have time to react before the ground beneath them turned to a sheet of ice. The two rogues hit by the bomb dropped out of stealth because of the damage from the explosion.
For a moment, the enemies stared at him in shock, then all hell broke loose. The rogues he’d stationed behind the wizards struck in unison, and the enemies frantically changed their focus to the characters attacking them. Kelath pulled a throwing knife and hit the third rogue to make sure none of them were still stealthed.
Poison applied.
Yorrick sprinted past, heading for the stairwell. The three rogues ran at Kelath since he was the one attacking them, so he threw knives at the two struggling to run out of the icy terrain to poison them and retreated until he’d joined the others. Elora threw fire bolts at the rogue that hadn’t been slowed, and Througar charged forward with Bandit close behind, cutting off the rogue’s pursuit. The enemy stabbed at Througar, whose health bar kept draining from poison and bleeding effects. At the same time, the two hidden friendly rogues caught up to Througar and stabbed at his opponent in unison. The enemy rogue’s HP dropped below half.
The cleric emerged from the tunnel only to be immediately confronted by Yorrick. They traded a couple blows before Zafira jumped out and sank her dagger into the cleric’s back. He repositioned to deny her sneak attacks but Yorrick cried, “Your fight is with me!” The cleric screamed in frustration and began to cast a spell, which was interrupted when Yorrick smashed him in the back of the head. The cleric wobbled back and forth on his feet, unable to do anything while he was stunned.
The slowed rogues were almost to the edge of the ice by the time Kelath stopped running. He pulled a fire bomb from his pouch and lined it up a little ahead of where they were standing so they would be inside the radius when it went off. He threw the bomb, and it struck a few yards ahead of his targets.
Critical hit!
Flames covered the ground around them, causing one to run off to the side to reach safety. The other pushed through the fire, his health dropping with each step. By the time he escaped the inferno, he was badly damaged, and Througar had dropped the first rogue with the help of his allies. He ordered Bandit to attack and ran up to the next enemy. Galahad cast a healing spell, and Througar was back to full health.
“I can keep us healed with elixirs,” Kelath yelled at Galahad. “Go help Yorrick and the others.”
“As you wish.” Galahad skirted around the scorched ground.
Kelath couldn’t see what was happening inside the ruined temple because of flames leaping up in between. He lost sight of Galahad and turned his attention to the two rogues that were left instead, hitting each with a poisoned knife. The one on the edge of the flames turned and ran back towards the interior. Kelath drew his dagger and advanced on the one that was left to fend for himself, and with so many people attacking, it wasn’t long before that fight ended. Kelath threw a healing elixir on the ground to top off everyone’s health, then they ran around the burning ground to rejoin the fight.
Kelath took a moment to survey the battlefield. Galahad was fighting the rogue that had retreated, and while he was holding his own, he couldn’t heal very effectively. Yorrick and Zafira had the cleric to about half health, although Yorrick was badly hurt. His rogues were still trading blows with the wizards, most of them around two-thirds health as both sides had been healing when a combatant was in danger.
“Elora, spread your attacks around. Keep your fire damage going on as many as you can,” said Kelath. “Everyone else, get that rogue off Galahad then focus on the cleric.”
Elora cast fire bolts in every direction as Througar and the rogues went to help Galahad. Kelath lobbed an elixir on the ground at Yorrick’s feet and replenished some of his HP. He drew throwing knives and cycled through each of the enemies, making sure they were always taking poison damage. Their opponents were steadily being worn down, and the cleric couldn’t keep them all healed. The rogue fighting Galahad dropped quickly once he was surrounded by their reinforcements. Free from being attacked, Galahad healed Yorrick, whose health was dangerously low again.
The cleric was soon surrounded, with five people and a wolf attacking him from all sides. He tried to cast a healing spell, but Yorrick stunned him again. Damage numbers rose over his head so frequently, it looked like a red fountain shooting into the air. Despite his higher level and heavy armor, his health dropped rapidly until he collapsed on the ground. With their healer dead, the wizards tried to run. Between Elora’s ice bolts and the rogues’ sneak attacks, they didn’t make it far. They cheered when the last enemy fell.
“Great work, everyone!” yelled Kelath.
“That was a glorious fight,” said Galahad.
“Indeed,” said Yorrick, who smiled for perhaps the first time since he’d joined the guild.
Elora hummed to herself and danced
over the body of the defeated cleric. The rogues laughed at her as they meandered between the corpses, searching each one for loot.
“We defeated their ambush,” said Zafira. “What happens next?”
“They’re probably regrouping at the graveyard,” said Kelath, “which means we have at most five minutes before they make it back here. I don’t have any more blindsight potions, so we need to find the dungeon entrance in that time. Once we’re inside the instance, they won’t be able to follow us.”
“We can stay here and stall them, but we have no chance of beating them again without a healer.” Zafira whistled at the rogues, who were bickering over the loot they’d collected. “Did you find anything good on the bodies?”
“Mostly coins and vendor trash,” said a female human rogue. “There were a few healing potions, but that’s about it. There was no equipment.”
Zafira took four of the healing potions and handed them to Througar. “You might need those since you’ll be tanking. Good luck!”
“Thanks,” said Througar and gave her a fist bump.
“We owe you one,” said Kelath. “I’ll find some way to pay you back.”
“I’m holding you to that!” Zafira rejoined the other rogues, and they all activated stealth mode.
Yorrick walked with them to the top of the stairwell. “No one will make it into the tunnel while I’m here. Farewell.”
“Stand strong,” said Galahad as he clasped Yorrick’s hand. “You will be remembered for your deeds this day.”
Yorrick nodded. Kelath felt he couldn’t add anything to Galahad’s sentiment, so he led them down into the dark stairwell.
Chapter 24
They descended the stone staircase to a tunnel running underneath the temple. Broken wires and holes in the floor showed where a previous party had discovered traps, and red stains were evidence of fights that had taken place. The tunnel ran a short distance before branching into different directions.
“Which way should we go?” asked Througar.
“It looks like they’ve cleared the path to the dungeon entrance,” said Kelath. “Someone should scout in each direction. If there are unsprung traps or enemies to fight, we can assume it’s the wrong way.”
“Sounds smart,” said Elora. “I’ll take the right passage here.”
“I’ll take the left,” said Kelath. “You two keep going straight. Come back to this intersection if you reach a dead end and wait for someone from another path, so you know which way to proceed.”
They split up and each went down a separate path. Kelath quickly reached a small room with two zombies shambling around. He identified them and found they were level ten before turning around and going back to the intersection. Before long, Througar and Galahad returned from the tunnel they’d taken.
“Nothing?” asked Kelath.
“We found a room with three skeletons, so we turned around,” said Througar.
“It must be the way Elora went.”
They followed the tunnel to the right until it opened into a square room of thirty feet on each side. Elora stood in the middle, looking at three more passages that led out of the room. Again they split up, taking different exits. They backtracked when they discovered obstacles and waited for the others to return so they knew which passage was the correct one. They spent about a minute figuring out the right path each time they split up, which was much too slow. Kelath called a halt at the third intersection.
“We need a better system to figure out where we need to go. There’s no way of knowing how many times we’ll have to search like this, and Itrix’s men are probably almost back to the temple.”
“What would you have us do?” asked Galahad.
Kelath looked around for clues to the direction Itrix’s party might have gone, but he was at a loss. Whatever monsters they’d been fighting, the bodies had already disappeared along with any arrows, flasks, or other items left behind from the battle. The only thing of interest in the room were a few blood stains on the floor.
“The only remnants from the battles here are the blood stains, and we have no way of knowing if they came from Itrix or the mobs. If Bandit tried to track, he might lead us around in circles, following some monster’s patrol route.”
“Actually,” said Elora, “we do know where the blood came from. All the enemies we’ve seen in here are undead.”
Througar’s eyes lit up. “That’s right! Dead bodies don’t bleed, so it couldn’t be from the skeletons or zombies.”
“See if you can pick up their trail,” said Kelath.
Througar called Bandit over to one of the larger stains and ordered him to smell it. The wolf pushed his nose to the floor and snorted as he took several large breaths. He circled around, sniffing at the stones until he found something and headed into one of the tunnels they hadn’t explored yet.
Througar let out a whoop and followed him. “Good boy, Bandit.”
The rest of them hurried so as not to be left behind. Bandit led the way down several passageways, stopping at sites where there had been a fight to determine the direction their enemy had gone afterwards. They had traversed through four more rooms without finding the dungeon entrance when Kelath received a tell.
“Hey,” said Zafira. “We think Itrix’s men will soon be here again. I sent one of my rogues with the last of our blindsight potions to watch for them. She figures they’ll find Yorrick in about a minute.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” replied Kelath. “We still haven’t found the instance, but I’ll send you a tell when we do.”
“Roger that.”
Kelath told his party to hurry. “Zafira sent me a tell and said they’re about to get company. Is there any way we could move faster?”
Througar shook his head. “Bandit needs time to sniff around or he’ll lose the scent. This is the fastest he can go.”
“We’ll get there,” said Elora. “I’m sure of it.”
“Your confidence is inspiring,” said Galahad.
“Thank you. I like to stay positive.”
Kelath wasn’t so sure, but he refrained from saying anything because he didn’t want to bring the others down. They continued on, his anxiety rising each time they stopped and waited for Bandit to search the ground. They were traveling down a long tunnel when another tell came in.
“They’re here,” said Zafira. “We can’t see them because we’re out of potions, but they’ve stopped somewhere among the ruined buildings. I think they’re scouting things out before they attack Yorrick.”
“Wait where you are,” Kelath sent back to her. He took off at a run down the corridor since it was straight with no branching passages. He ignored the calls of his teammates and sprinted to where it opened into a large room. On the other side was a portal that gave off a shimmering blue light. He sent another tell to Zafira saying, “Pull back. We’ve found the dungeon entrance. There’s no way they can catch up to us.”
“What if they attack Yorrick?” asked Zafira.
“You can’t take all of them, so there’s no reason for the rest of you to be killed. Tell him to retreat, then go to the graveyard in case he gets ambushed.”
“Will do.”
Galahad and Elora caught up, with Througar and Bandit not far behind. Elora cheered when she saw the entrance to the dungeon. Together they walked forward into the blue light.
* * *
Kelath and the members of his party found themselves in a large underground temple carved out of the rock. Wooden pews stood in lines running away from them, a large group of zombies stumbling between them. Kelath examined one of them and saw they were level ten elites. With the way they meandered around the room, pulling them one at a time would be impossible.
“If this is a level 10 dungeon, why hasn’t Itrix beaten it yet?” asked Kelath. “His team has to be several levels higher than that.”
“Dungeons restrict players to a certain level when you enter,” said Througar. “You have to be at least the level of the dungeon to
enter, and anyone higher has their level reduced to be in line with the dungeon settings. Itrix and his people would all effectively be level 10 while in the instance.”
“So they would have no advantage over us?”
“Other than the fact they’ve fought through the dungeon and know what to expect, no.”
“Can we research the fights before we attempt them?” asked Elora.
“No,” said Througar. “I checked when I overheard them talking about discovering this place. There is a listing for it in Genepedia, but the page is a stub with no information. Nobody has posted anything about the monsters or bosses. I don’t know if anyone outside of Noblesse Oblige has even been in here.”
“We have,” said Elora with a smile. “We might as well start.”
“Yes, let us remove the undead abominations from this temple,” said Galahad.
They moved forward to be in range of the closest enemies, and Througar shot a zombie in the chest with his bow. The zombie moaned, drawing the attention of two others nearby who charged them. Througar attacked each of them in turn, spreading out his damage so they would all focus on him. Once he had their attention, Kelath aimed a fire bomb to hit the zombies but avoid Througar and Bandit.
Critical hit!
Flames coated the floor and singed the wooden pews. The zombies were too stupid to move out of the area, and the fire continued to damage their desiccated flesh. Elora cast fire bolts at one until it fell over backwards then moved on to another. Kelath drew his dagger and slashed at the new target. His poison and bleed effects were severely diminished. Zombies didn’t have blood in their veins, either to carry the poison or bleed out, so while it made sense his attacks should do less damage, he found it extremely annoying.
Galahad focused on healing Througar, who took most of the damage during the fight. The zombies sometimes swung their arms in an arc that hit Kelath and Bandit, but they weren’t harmed much. The fight took longer to finish due to the larger than normal amount of HP the zombies had for being elite, but by the time the last one dropped, they all still had mostly full health bars. Galahad and Elora drank from flasks of conjured water to regain their mana while Kelath and Througar searched the bodies. They found a number of copper coins but nothing else.