“Very far away,” Gretchen interrupted, “And we’ll be happy to tell you all about it when we’re done.” Gretchen gave me a look of warning.
We approached Castle Six from the rear. Vern stood waiting for us to approach, his giant maul slung over his shoulder.
“No peeps from the castle,” he said. “He either got out another way or he’s still in there.” Winston stood watch at the front.
According to the map in the defense cockpit, the castle was still occupied. So we knew he was in there somewhere.
“Okay, then,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
From above, the castle was shaped vaguely like a large capital A, with the back entrance being the tip of the A. The main entrance was in the middle of the center cross section. A massive, elaborate door stood between the two triple-story arms that ran east to west. This main door faced the Gardens where we’d had our earlier battle with the towers. However, the fortified and chained-up door appeared undisturbed. Prince Kankan and his small crew of warriors must have entered the castle using a secret entrance.
Jonah grumbled something about a pyramid and underground lobby, but it was in regards to the real-world version of the museum. While having a geography expert was very helpful most of the time, I still believed all that crap rattling around in his head could sometimes be just as much of a liability. There were no pyramids and underground lobbies here. This wasn’t the real Louvre Museum, and he needed to get that in his head.
I nodded at Bingo, and the gorcupine and his party of 30 warriors rushed toward the back end of the massive complex. They stood ready to beat down the exit door while we breached the front. The triplets and the other archers took positions around the entire complex. If the hobgoblins escaped out of an above-ground passage, somebody would see them.
“Spritz,” I said as we approached the gate. “Whenever you’re ready.”
The rock creature strode forward. She waved a hand at the front wall of the castle and muttered a few words. She looked at me.
“I cannot do this. It appears I am not high enough level.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I said. I’d been hoping the astound could erase the front door. Apparently it wasn’t going to be so simple. “Okay, boys, plan B. Pound the shit out of the door until it breaks.”
A line of warriors broke forward and started smashing their weapons against the gate. It took a good long time to splinter open the door. The wood crashed forward under the weight of the blows of the half-ogre warriors who pushed their way in, shouting and swinging their weapons.
Bingo: We have breached the rear entrance.
Poppy: Have at it, buddy. Happy hunting.
I hollered at the warriors pouring into the front gate, “Search and destroy, boys!”
“Don’t kill the monsters unless you have to!” Gretchen yelled after them as we rushed forward to enter the large castle.
On the minimap, the white with blue cross dots of the war party members pulled away as they disbursed into the castle.
“What sort of notifications will we get?” Jonah asked as he pulled Triple Fang free.
Gretchen answered. “In plain war parties, you get notifications if they’re physically close to you. If someone in your party gets killed, the death notification will pop up like a normal one. In large battles with hundreds of people dying by the minute, it gets grayed out and scrolls by super fast unless the person is on your hot list or is a commander. The way experience is shared is a little different. In a regular party, all you have to do is either assist or attack the monster once to get a full share of experience.”
“As long as you are alive when it’s killed,” I added, remembering once again how I’d been shafted in the tournament battle.
“Yeah,” Gretchen said. “In war parties, it’s much like playing solo. You get assist experience if you get a hit in, but you don’t get a credit for killing it unless you’re the one who landed the killing blow. It’s not really a big difference except when it comes down to fulfilling certain achievements and calculating experience. Early on in the game there are quests to kill a certain number of sheep, but there are 100 other new players also trying to kill the same 10 sheep or so. It’s hard to get past that unless they all decide to work together.”
“For such an open-world game there are too many rules,” Jonah grumbled as we walked through the doorway of the expansive castle number six.
Entering Castle 6.
Warning: this castle is occupied by an opposing faction.
High, ribbed ceilings spread out to the left and right of us. The building looked as if it had once been a museum like its real-world counterpart, but everything had been looted, leaving it empty and kind of creepy. On either side, the sounds of shouting and fighting rose.
“Let’s do this,” I said. “First priority is killing this Prince Kankan asshole. Second priority is getting some monsters in these traps the platypus guy gave us.”
Unknown Note 4
Sam,
It’s been awhile since I’ve let anyone be my friend. I have four friends here. Jonah and Gretchen are the first two. Their real names are Charlie and Melinda, but we pretty much just call each other by our character names.
My other two friends are both NPCs. One is a hippocorn named Alice. She’s great. The fourth is little kid polecat. His name is Raj.
We’re playing Dominion of Blades. You’d love this shit.
So let me tell you about Raj, the polecat.
He’s small, he’s full of energy, and he’s enthusiastic about everything. The other day I’d told him about donuts. That shit from Prantl’s? Remember how fucking good that is when you’re hungover? Anyway, I described donuts to him, and the little polecat just started drooling like a goddamned dog. Afterward, we made the cook here try to recreate donuts just so he could try them.
The game’s version tasted like shit, but Raj didn’t care. That little polecat ate an entire dozen of them, eyes wide with joy, just shoveling that shit into his mouth, laughing the whole time.
You see, the kid is innocent. I told him that donuts are the greatest thing in the world to eat, and he believed me. The proof was otherwise. I mean, they were crap. But it didn’t matter. I’d told that kid they were the best, and he believed me.
Watching him the other day when he was eating, that’s when I realized why I like Raj so much, why I’m so protective of him.
He’s just like you. You and Raj. You’re the same.
I let you believe I was the best friend you could have, when the opposite was true.
When you died, it felt as if the entire world had fallen on my chest, and it was crushing the air out of me. I was inside, and you were out there, alone, left to clean up my mess. I’d put you there, and you died because of it.
Sam, I am so sorry for everything. Please forgive me.
Elijah.
Jonah Note 8
Concentrate asshole. You’re in a dungeon.
I kept playing it over and over in my mind. We stood on the drawbridge. Gretchen and Bruce Bruce had just gone in the portal. The world event notification came. Popper had sounded so scared in his message, and I kept thinking, if something happens to him, it’s your fault.
I looked up, and Keta was right next to me. I looked at her questioningly, she muttered a few words, and she pushed me through the portal. Just like that. In just a second, I’d lost everything. That one little motion, just a simple, magical push, and the world changed.
“What the fuck is that?” Popper asked, jumping back. He wielded only Dolly Trauma, which was nothing more than a kitchen knife. He’d lost both his axe and his breastplate.
“Get back,” I called, snapping my mind to the now. I unfurled Triple Fang while Gretchen readied the traps the beastmaster had given us. Each trap was the size of a shoe box and was attached to a short length of chain, like a flail, to facilitate being thrown.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Popper roared. It took me a moment to realize he was yelling at the
NPC half-ogres who were trying to push past me to get to the shaggy monster that now faced us.
It looked like a wolf-sized iguana wearing a jacket of quills, like a smaller version of Bingo. Instead of being a gorilla/porcupine hybrid, this thing was more like a lizard/hedgehog amalgam.
“I know what that is,” Gretchen whispered, coming up next to me. “It’s a peluda.”
The monster hissed. It looked back and forth between us and something further down the hallway, shrinking in on itself.
“It’s trapped,” I said. “The others went around the other way, and they’re coming up the hallway.”
“Okay,” Gretchen said. “We need to be careful. There are four kinds of these things, and I can’t tell which one this is. They have strong armor. Their only weakness is their tail.”
“What can they do?” I asked. We had to somehow hit it with the square trap to get it inside, but Oliver said it would only work if they were injured or tired.
“It’s like Pokémon meets Ghostbusters,” Popper had said, noting the traps looked like medieval versions of the ghost-catching traps from the latter franchise.
“They have a breath weapon,” Gretchen said. “Depending on which one, it’s water, acid, lightning, or...”
We both jumped back as the fireball rocketed down the hall toward us.
Gretchen and I both activated our rings as we fell back, and the powerful fireball crashed against the blue shield. Both shields immediately fizzled out. A wave of heat washed over me, but we were unhurt.
“Strike now!” Gretchen called, spinning one of the traps in her right hand, like it was a sling. “Hit him right in the face!”
I leaped forward, sending a wave of blades forward. They ricocheted off the beast’s scaly head. It reared back, dazed, but otherwise unhurt.
Gretchen tossed the trap. The square box hit the large lizard on the center of its back—in the midst of the quills. The monster disappeared in a puff of smoke, and the box clanked hard to the floor. The trap hummed ominously.
“Well that’s one monster,” I said.
“That’s a multi-trap,” Gretchen said. “We can reuse it as long as we keep capturing the same type of monster.”
“Really?” I said, walking forward to inspect the rectangle box. A rough drawing of the peluda appeared etched on the outside of the metal box. A group of bloodied half-ogres and dwarves came up the hallway from the other side. “How many can we fit in there?”
“I’m not sure,” Gretchen said. “But if you accidentally grab the wrong kind of monster, they all pop out at once. These traps were pretty common in the old days. There are lots of quests involving them.”
“I once grabbed 20 snaggle-snorts,” Popper said, coming up. “They’re about the same size. After that, it wouldn’t capture any more, so I think that’s the limit. I think it has to do with total weight.”
Gretchen nodded. “I’d guestimate that thing to be about 45 kilograms, or just under 100 pounds. Snaggle-snorts are the same size, but they’re pigs, and I bet they weigh five times as much. Twenty of them makes sense. That’s just about five tons worth of pig. So I’m guessing we can hold about 100 of those peludas in here.”
“Jesus,” I said, picking up the small trap. I handed it to Gretchen. “Can you use these things on other players?”
“No,” Gretchen said, “not players or NPCs. Bruce Bruce and Alice would be vulnerable, though, so be careful around them.”
“It was one of the ways people used to fuck with other people in the old days,” Popper said as we turned a corner, hunting down a long hallway. This section had already been torn through. The shattered remains of three of the peludas lay on the floor along with the burned corpse of a dwarven warrior NPC. Popper cursed at the sight of the dead warrior. We’d gotten the notification one had been killed a few minutes earlier. He sighed and continued. “You can only capture someone’s mount in PVP areas, and you don’t actually get to keep them if they’re a pet. Once you open the trap, they pop out and run away. You can keep the mounts, but they usually don’t trust you.”
“What if you don’t open the trap at all?” I asked.
“These traps expire after a week or so,” Popper said. “You can’t keep things in there indefinitely.”
“But you can steal someone’s pet for a little bit?” I asked.
“I guess. If you’re an asshole,” Popper said.
“Hmm,” I said. “Are there traps that can hold bigger monsters?”
“Yes,” Gretchen said. “We both have a trapping skill of nine, so we can use the more complex ones. A trapper is a hunter subclass that can do all sorts of neat things. Trappers could make a lot of money. Once we hit 11, we can use the behemoth traps. You have to carry them on the back of a cart, though. The trap is the size of a small car.”
Bingo: We have the subject trapped on the third floor, southwest corner. He has placed himself inside of a guild I do not have access to. His nine companions have all been dealt with. We are awaiting your further instructions.
Poppy: My man. We’ll be there lickity-split.
Bingo: I do not know what that means, but I assume you are coming.
A purple waypoint popped up, indicating where we needed to go. After a moment, it became clear I was the only one who had the waypoint. I realized it was my cartography skill, which was now an expert level of 11, which gave me a lot of small advantages such as this. Gretchen said it wasn’t a very common skill, but it seemed extremely useful.
Popper recalled the grizzled old human archer, Granger, from the outside along with those three new archers and their bard companion. We gave them the remainder of the empty traps and instructed them to head to the basement and capture as much as they could, assuming anything was left alive. We tasked the fighters to keep the hallways clear but not to go into any of the rooms. Tiatha the healer and Nale the arcanist kept with us.
“Why can’t Bingo go in there?” I asked.
“You can’t go into guild halls of skills or weapons you’re not at least level three in,” Gretchen said, “unless it’s a public guild or you’re invited by the guild master. That’s why some of the hidden guilds are so hard to find. They only reveal themselves to those with the correct skills.”
“Yeah,” Popper said. “Remember the boomerang guild?”
“I do,” Gretchen said. “Some guy had trained himself up to level 25 in the boomerang skill and wanted to find the guild so he could challenge the guildmaster, but nobody could find it. It’s not a common skill. He offered $50,000 or something to anyone who could find it.”
We turned a corner, another hallway filled with blood. Several doors led off to other areas. We’d have to explore later.
Popper laughed, continuing. “Yeah, the boomerang guy was this rich asshole from New York, and some poor kid from Australia ended up finding it. With the reward, everybody was training up their boomerang skill to three so they could search for it. It ended up being in a cave on the side of a cliff somewhere in Wallaloo.”
I knew Wallaloo was western Australia.
“But get this. The asshole didn’t pay up. He said he was about to look there himself and that the kid cheated. The whole story went viral, and the dude doubled down and called this 13-year-old kid all sorts of names. So Larissa Hughes—yeah that Larissa, the real-life version of Captain Rambo, she’s like 70 years old at this point, comes out of nowhere and buys the brokerage the guy worked for. She bought the guy’s work, and then she named the 13-year-old kid CEO. She flew the kid in from Australia, put him in a suit, and the kid came out and got to personally fire the asshole. It was glorious.”
“Geez, she sounds like a real badass,” I said.
We climbed a set of stairs, turned a corner, and climbed a second set, coming to the third and top floor.
Winston the gorcupine waited for us at the top. The massive gorilla was soaked in gore. His quills remained flared, and pieces of some unrecognizable creature peppered his back like glitter.
H
e grunted, waving us along to follow. The hallways on this top floor were much thinner than in the lower levels. An ornate but tattered and stained red rug ran the length of the hall. Paintings hung at intervals, and archways led off to other areas with additional paintings, all with massive, baroque-style frames. The lower levels had been featureless hallways, like the building had been completely looted. Up here, I had the constant feeling we were being watched.
I examined one painting as we passed, and the image was an odd battle scene with several naked, blonde-haired dwarves with Roman-style helmets fighting these humanoid bird creatures. The brass plate underneath named the painting The Intervention of the Wark-ee Hens.
Actually, after looking some more it seemed the dwarves were fighting each other, and the birds were attempting to stop the fight. Several broken eggs lay on the ground at the feet of the dwarves.
I shook my head as we turned yet another corner, and my sense told me we were almost there. Hundreds of pieces of armor littered this hallway, and we had to wade through them, the brass pieces clanking. The armor reminded me of the egg pieces from the painting.
“This armor was recently enchanted,” Nale said from the back of our procession. “I suspect the armor itself was animated, many suits of it. Animated armor is usually the work of a powerful mage.”
“Are you sure?” Popper asked, his voice indicating he didn’t put much stock into anything the auric arcanist said.
“I am sure,” Nale said. “My spells may not be the most powerful, but I am an expert in the study of magic itself. I know constructs when I see them.”
“Were you guys attacked by the armor?” I asked Winston. The gorcupine grunted and nodded.
Bingo and several warriors stood at the end of the hallway, standing in front of a large door. Tiatha moved forward, quickly healing several minor wounds amongst the group.
“She’s the most efficient healer I’ve ever seen,” Gretchen said.
“Yeah, she’s all right,” Popper said.
“Not much of a talker,” I said, watching the druid work.
The Hobgoblin Riot: Dominion of Blades Book 2: A LitRPG Adventure Page 24