Darkness Fallen

by Dave Willmarth

  The fight didn’t last long. Not being able to breathe, the two warriors fell unconscious in under a minute. Beatrix quickly removed their weapons before dismissing the water globes, allowing the players to breathe once again. Then she began to strip them of their armor as well. As she worked, Kai re-entered the room carrying an unconscious cook. Max and Lainey were dragging the other one. The two cooks were set on the floor next to the others.

  “First floor is clear,” Jules reported. “I’m heading upstairs to help Sophie.”

  “We need to get these five out of here. If they wake up before we’re done, they’ll be able to alert others.” Sasha looked at Alexander as she spoke.

  Nodding his head, Alexander said, “I hereby place you all under arrest as enemies of the Kingdoms of Stormforge and Broken Mountain,” as he cast Bind Soul on each of them.

  With that done, he said, “That’s it. Their souls are now bound to the keep. Kill them.”

  “Wait!” Kai stepped between Alexander and the cooks. “These two are not members of PWP. Nor are they adventurers.”

  Alexander looked to Sasha, who didn’t answer right away. After a moment, she gave a slight nod. “We’ll bind them for now. Gag them so they can’t call out. If they’re just hired help, maybe they’ll give us some information when they wake up.”

  Kai, satisfied that the citizens wouldn’t be needlessly killed, stepped back from the two cooks. Lainey produced some leather thongs and bound them securely. Meanwhile, Helga happily lopped off the heads of the three players, killing them instantly. Max looted their bags and whatever items Beatrix hadn’t already removed from the bodies.

  Sophie reported in. “There are a bunch of sleeping rooms up here. Most are empty. Two have a single adventurer in them. One has two adventurers. They are… distracted.” Sasha snorted at this.

  Alexander said, “Kai, can you take Lyra and Warren and check out the cellar? Dayle can cover the kitchen exit. The rest of us will deal with the folks upstairs.”

  Kai nodded his head and left the dining room, waving for Lyra to join him. Then both of them went into the kitchen.

  Max and Lainey led the way upstairs. When they reached the second floor, they found a long corridor that led off to the left and right of the stairs. Jules and Sophie were standing in the hall to the right, both of them out of stealth mode. Jules head a finger up to her lips to indicate that they should be quiet.

  When the group reached them, Sophie pointed to a door and held up one finger. Then she pointed to the door next to it and held up another single digit. Jules pointed to a door across the hall and down a bit, and held up two fingers, blushing slightly.

  Sasha pointed to the first door with the single occupant. Max opened it quietly, just wide enough that so that Jules and Sophie could creep inside. Alexander stuck his head in far enough to see the sleeping player, a low-level caster of some kind in cloth robes. He cast Bind Soul on her and whispered that she was under arrest. With a nod from him, Jules and Sophie went to work. Jules slit the player’s throat as Sophie stabbed her in the heart. She was dead instantly. Max looted the body, taking her staff as well as her inventory bag.

  Moving down the hall, they repeated the process on another player, a level 40 barbarian this time. Moving quickly, they approached the door where the two adventurers, based on the sounds drifting through to the corridor, were still quite ardently occupied.

  Sasha whispered. “Max, Lainey, use your stuns. Beatrix, suffocate them both. Jules, Sophie, each of you cut a throat. We need this to be fast.”

  This time, Alexander opened the door so that Max could have an arrow drawn immediately. As soon as there was room, Jules and Sophie snuck in and moved to either side of the bed. In stealth mode, neither were spotted as the busy players bumped and groaned. Max and Lainey stepped inside, bows drawn, and fired. Lainey used her Shock Arrow on the bottom player, while Max hit the top one with a Silence arrow followed immediately by a multi-shot to the back of his head. Beatrix stepped into the room and cast a Water Globe on each of their heads, preventing them from crying out or casting. Max, Lorian, and Lainey held their fire as Jules stepped in to slice the throat of the female player laying on her back on the bed, while Sophie did the same to the one on top of her. Alexander couldn’t tell at a glance what class they were, as neither were wearing any gear of any kind. But both were under level thirty.

  Both players succumbed in seconds. The moment the last one died, an alert message popped up on Alexander’s UI.

  You have defeated all defenders of the PWP Guild House. Maintain control of the facility for ten minutes to assume ownership.

  Alexander cursed softly to himself before asking “Uhhh…guys? Did the rest of you get that message?”

  Sasha responded first. “Yeah. Ten minutes”

  Brick spoke up in raid chat. “Ten minutes be forever. Them first ones ye killed in the dinin’ room might be out n callin’ their friends by now.”

  Alexander thought it over. Ten minutes would be dangerous. But if they could take ownership of the building, it would give them a foothold in Antalia.

  He spoke in raid chat “Brick, Lugs, Dayle, watch the exits. Call out if you see anyone approaching. Max, go open the vault. I’ll join you in a minute. The rest of you spread out. If anyone spawns inside the building, call for help. These folks were all lower level. There should be at least one high-level adventurer running things.”

  Sasha added, “If you spot anyone inside, stun them or use whatever you have to buy time for others to come help you. We kill them as fast as we can. Don’t wait for Alexander to arrest them. Anyone we kill now won’t respawn until after the capture timer runs out. Brick, shape the stone around the doors so they won’t open. I’ll come watch the front so that you can do the others.”

  The raid members split up, opening all the doors on the upper floor and placing themselves so that they could monitor any spawns. Fibble began poking around in the various sleeping rooms, looking for whatever goblins considered to be loot. Jules smiled as the little goblin tested an overstuffed pillow before hugging it and then pushing it into his bag.

  Max, Alexander, and Sasha headed back downstairs. By the time they reached Brick, he had already sealed the front door. Sasha took his place on watch so that he could do the same at the back.

  Max pulled the keys he’d looted from Henry out of his bag and headed to open the guild vault. Alexander stayed with Sasha for a moment.

  Sasha said, “You know there’s going to be an announcement when the timer runs out. We’ve captured a guild headquarters. At the least, the kingdom will be alerted. If not everyone on the server.”

  Alexander nodded his head thoughtfully. “Yeah, just like when we captured the keep. And I expect that guards will swarm this place right after. We’ll need to either teleport out or escape through the tunnels.”

  Alexander left Sasha to join Max in the guild vault. Unsurprisingly, the room was pretty bare. Henry had obviously been selling off all the gear for gold, systematically bankrupting the guild. Max was busy placing the items they’d taken from Henry back onto the vault’s shelves.

  Alexander looked around, identifying items that looked like they might be rare, or that looked different. Not finding anything suspicious after a few minutes, he said to Max, “Keep looking around. Anything you see that might be dangerous, let me know. If you don’t find anything, seal the vault. I’m going down to find Kai.”

  Leaving the vault and heading through the kitchen, Alexander noted that the exit door leading outside was sealed with stone. Turning to his right, he descended the stairs into the cellar. The stairs ended in a large room, maybe half the size of the house above. There were stacks of crates, and a few shelves with food items like bags of flour and rice, and a wicker basket full of potatoes. Kai was nowhere in sight.

  Moving across the room, Alexander spotted an opening in the floor behind some crates. Looking down, he saw a faint glow, as if from a light globe some distance away. He opened raid chat.
>
  “Kai? Are you in the tunnels?”

  “Yes, Alexander. I found the entrance quite easily, and am now checking the tunnels for any foes. The tunnel system is quite extensive.” Kai responded.

  Alexander closed his eyes. Using his Earth Sense ability, he reached down below the cellar and into the ground below. He immediately picked up the tunnel Kai must be in. Expanding his sense, he was able to follow the tunnels as they wound around below the streets of the city. On a whim, he pulled up his UI map. It showed the guild house and roughly a half block of the city around the structure. But no tunnels.

  There should be a way to add these tunnels to my map. I can see them, even if I haven’t technically walked them…

  With a thought, he zoomed in on the map as far as it would go. It now showed him the cellar he was standing in, with a stairway leading up, and a black square where the tunnel entrance was. But still no tunnels.

  Reaching up a hand, he touched the black tunnel entrance with a thumb and finger, pushing them apart in hopes of enlarging the square. Nothing happened. He tried double-tapping the square. No joy there, either.

  Closing his eyes again, he focused on his Earth Sense. Expanding his view of the tunnels as widely as he could, he then thought ‘MAP’ as emphatically as possible before opening his eyes.

  And just like that, the map on his UI zoomed in through the black square of the tunnel entrance, and a map of the tunnels themselves appeared!

  You have learned a new skill: Cartography! You can now increase your UI map’s detail by visual or magical exploration of an area. At higher levels, you will be able to combine this skill with the Scribe skill to create parchment maps that may be traded or sold.

  Smiling to himself, he called out to Kai. “Kai, can you hear me? We may need to leave in a hurry. I’m going to the roof to see if we can teleport our way out of here. Please come back upstairs!”

  Kai’s voice echoed up through the floor opening “On my way, Alexander.”

  Turning to the stairs, he walked back up to the ground floor. Looking at Dayle, who was monitoring the area outside the kitchen door, he asked, “See anyone?”

  Dayle shook his head. “Not a single person.” Motioning toward the two cooks visible through the dining room door, he asked, “What do you want to do with them?”

  Alexander paused partway across the kitchen. He looked at the cooks, who were both awake and looking very afraid. In raid chat, he said, “Sasha, Sophie, please come to the dining room and speak with the cooks. They’re awake. Reassure them they won’t be killed, and find out all you can. Not necessarily in that order.”

  Passing through the dining room without making eye contact with the prisoners, he made his way to the stairs and up. Once on the second floor, he located a small stair at the far end of the hallway that led up to the roof.

  Opening the door and stepping out onto the roof, Alexander got his first look at the city of Antalia. The buildings were a mixture of stone and wood, most only a single story high. Most had pitched roofs made of wood or tile. Off in the distance to the north sat the queen’s palace, surrounded by a thirty-foot-high wall. The donjon was four stories tall, and there were several taller towers rising around it.

  He made a complete circle, slowly taking in as much of the city as he could. He opened his UI map again to confirm that it was filling in. When he’d made a complete circle, and was facing the palace again, he had a nearly complete map of the city overlaid on top of his tunnel map. He noticed right away that the tunnels extended well beyond the city walls in several places.

  Turning to the west, he’d hoped to spot some sort of clearing he could teleport the raid party to, in case they had to abandon the guild house. But the roof he stood on sat lower than the city walls, and he had no such luck.

  Turning his gaze back to the palace, he noted several towers with flat roofs. There were three towers connected to the palace walls that each had guards atop them. But a large tower near the center of the palace, the tallest of them all, had no guard visible.

  Taking a deep breath, Alexander teleported himself to the top of that tower. After a quick look around to confirm that he was alone, he quietly released the breath he’d been holding. The rooftop he stood on was about twenty feet by twenty, with a crenelated wall around the perimeter. There was a heavy-looking wooden trap door in the floor, which he assumed led down into the tower stairway.

  Crouching down so as not to be seen from below, he moved to the western side and looked out over the city walls. He noted a cleared area approximately a half-mile wide that was simply rolling fields of grass, likely kept trimmed by farmers and their livestock. Beyond the cleared area was a forest of moderate-sized trees. Nothing like the mature trees in Dire Woods or the elder giants up on the plateau.

  His gaze was quickly caught by a hilltop visible several hundred yards beyond the tree line. The hill was cleared and rose up higher than the surrounding trees. Atop the hill was what had caught his attention. There was a ruined temple perched there; its white stone sparkling in the sunlight.

  There we go! There’s our escape point. I can get us there if necessary.

  Looking at his UI, he noted there was less than a minute before the clock ran out on the guild house capture. He searched frantically for the guild house rooftop, cursing himself for not marking it somehow. After a few seconds, he closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath. A moment later, he teleported himself back to the room inside the house where they’d first arrived.

  In raid chat, he said, “Everybody to the front room, please. The clock is about to run out.”

  As he reached the front room himself, he was about to speak to Brick when he heard several party members chuckling. Following their gazes, he looked up the staircase to see Lainey walking down, carrying what looked like a pile of pillows. Then a small green arm emerged from the pillows, waving wildly. Alexander grinned as Lainey reached the bottom and set Fibble down on the floor, where he rolled around a bit. The goblin had two pillows tied to him, one in front and one in back. The things were nearly as large as he was himself. As a result, all that could be seen of the goblin was two feet and an arm sticking out.

  Looking at Lainey, he asked, “Your work?”

  “He asked me to do it.” She shrugged. She was about to say more when a deep gong rang out through the city.

  >>>System Alert!<<<

  The Greystone Guild has captured the guild house belonging to Providence Will Provide, in the City and Kingdom of Antalia, and claimed it as Greystone property! The property is designated as restricted for the next 24 hours. Any who were previously bound to the guild house will now be bound to the fountain in the nearest city square.

  “And there it is…” Max said aloud.

  Lainey asked, “Restricted?” as she bent to lift Fibble from the floor, settling him on his feet.

  Brick spoke first. “It be a PVP thing. If ye manage to capture an enemy stronghold, ye gets a day to make repairs and get yerselves ready to defend it.”

  When Lainey didn’t look satisfied, Sasha explained further. “Otherwise one could never take and hold a stronghold without a tremendously overwhelming force. The ousted defenders could just keep attacking through the same broken defenses you just penetrated. Players would just continue respawning and attacking in waves. The battle would likely bankrupt both parties and all the members who participate.”

  Lainey nodded her head in understanding. “But then, why were we concerned about the timer?”

  Alexander looked down at the floor. “I uhhh… forgot about the cooldown period. I expected the place to be swarming with city guards and bounty-seeking adventurers by now.” He motioned to the windows at the front of the house.

  The others looked outside. Sure enough, a guard patrol was already taking up station outside the house’s small gate. But unlike normal guards who would be facing out toward the street, these were facing the front door. Each had a tower shield on one arm, and a pike set butt-down on the stone roa
dway. Clearly meaning to capture or kill anyone exiting the building. Behind the guards, citizens and adventurers were already gathering, hoping to witness a battle. Or to be the first ones to collect a bounty.

  Attention Citizens!

  The Greystone Guild, invaders from the Kingdom of Stormforge, are within our gates! They have slaughtered the innocent adventurers and citizens living in the Providence Will Provide guild house! The Queen’s bounty has been increased to 5,000 gold to anyone who brings us the head of a Greystone member!

  There was a combination of cheers and angry shouts from the growing crowd outside. A large barbarian player pushed through the guards and charged across the tiny courtyard between the road and the front door; two-handed hammer raised above his head. With an impressive war cry, he swung the hammer around to shatter the door.

  The hammer rebounded off an invisible barrier that surrounded the house. The player cried out in pain as the vibration from the rejected blow ran up through the hammer’s handle into his hands. He dropped the weapon and shook his hands frantically before shoving one under each armpit. “Son of a bitch!”

  Max snorted. “Dumbass.” Brick just laughed and waved out the window.

  Shaking her head, Sasha turned to the group. “Well, we don’t have to worry about guarding the entrances for a while. But we also won’t be walking out of here anytime soon. I say we all retire to the dining room and discuss next steps.” She began to lead the way back down the hall to the dining room. The two cooks were still seated at the table as the party members filed in. They’d been unbound, but looked nervous and seemed in no hurry to risk escape.