by G. Akella
"So where do I come in?"
"I need tissue samples from several representatives of the local fauna for my research. I shall give you a few Medium Invisibility Potions in return."
You've accessed the quest: Samples for Research.
Quest type: normal.
Bring Peotius the sorcerer ten blighted tissue samples taken from each of the following species: boars, wolves, and bears.
Reward: experience, 2 Medium Invisibility Potions.
I accepted the quest and quickly said my goodbyes. I went out, visited the local graveyard, which was the spitting image of the one in Lamorna, set a bind point, and only then proceeded to the punisher camp for my quest.
A wide canopy held by six supports, about a dozen wooden cots, a pot on a tripod, a few tables and benches, and three odd-looking constructions made of medium-sized logs and resembling anti-tank obstacles. One had to be very generous to call this an outpost—it looked more like a cookhouse.
Captain Neyl, woken up by one of the legionaries, washed his face in a small roadside pond, and approached me, yawning all the while.
"So you plan to take a stroll to the ruins, eh?" asked the captain in a hoarse low voice after giving me the once-over. He looked around fifty—a shaved head with a long topknot and a droopy mustache gave the captain an uncanny resemblance to the cossacks from the books I'd read in my childhood, with the exception of gray horns on either side of his cranium.
"Yes, and I'd like to find out what I'm likely to expect. I have also heard that Master Ritter has put a bounty on the local fiends."
"The first impression you get is that there's nothing of substance there—on the surface, at least. We didn't check out the swamp, but we did go all the way to the ruins," Neyl shrugged. "Blighted land begins right across those trees," he pointed to a small copse some nine hundred feet away. "You mostly encounter pigs on your way to the ruins. No idea where so many have come from—we've never had anything like those numbers before," the captain shrugged again. "You can find wolves and bears if you go farther into the woods. You mostly find regular fiends right next to the ruins. As for the reward..."
You've accessed the quest: Rid the Territory of Blighted Pigs.
Quest type: normal, recurring.
Bring 20 tails of blighted boars to Captain Neyl.
Reward: experience, 1 gold.
I received identical quests involving wolf and bear tails—I had to bring fifteen and ten of each, respectively. There were also two undead quests—the captain paid a gold coin for ten skulls or five severed zombie arms.
"Another thing," Neyl frowned and looked aside. "Things aren't all that cheery over there," he sighed. "When the whole thing started, the locals tried to clean up the territory by themselves. But then the hunters started to disappear—the village lost seven of them back then. Me and my boys have made a few sorties to the ruins, but we didn't encounter anything substantial along the way." Neyl looked toward the copse. "You take good care when you get there. If you see anything, call me and the boys, and we'll help. There's not much hope for the locals," he waved dismissively. "They had a few reckless guys, but those disappeared a week ago. There was one hell of a thunderstorm that night, and you could hear some strange roaring coming from that direction."
"I see," I nodded. "Thanks for the warning, Neyl. Tell me, is it true that the fiends try to make their way into the village every night?"
"Nah, the mayor likes to put on a scare," the captain chuckled. "We eliminate anything we see up to the very copse. Should something wander in at night, a single slash of the sword takes care of it."
Beyond the copse pointed out to me by Neyl there were fields on either side of the road, where the locals used to grow their crops. Now these fields were but enormous rectangles of wilted vegetation, with numerous pigs of a revolting bluish color roaming them in groups of three. Each was about four feet tall. Patches of skin hung from their sides, and you could see ribs where the flesh had rotted through. It made for a revolting sight. The beasts were around level 70-75, so I had no worries whatsoever. I said to myself, Let's get started. I took the shield from my back into my left hand, clenched the handle of the sword with my right, stepped off the path and cautiously set toward the group I'd chosen.
Earth Shackles bound the two beasts the furthest from me. The third pig, or, rather, boar, going by the tusks on its lower jaw, snorted loudly and started to hop in my direction. Some ten yards off the creature accelerated all of a sudden, covering the remaining distance in the blink of an eye and plunging its tusks into the small of my back with an upward motion. The pain made me clench my teeth, and I barely managed to stay on my feet. I slashed at the boar's neck with Ice Blade—not the best strike I could have managed, but it took a quarter of the beast's HP. I used my shield to block the next attack, and then lashed out at the squealer with Tongue of Flame. I landed a critical blow—the boar wheezed and slowly fell to the side. A stench of burning rotten flesh filled the air.
A few seconds later, the two remaining pigs were released from the hold of my Earth Shackles, and they started to trot toward me confidently. Having learned of their ability the hard way, I hid behind the carcass of my first victim, preventing the attackers from dashing in my direction, and greeted the first beast with the well-familiar Ice Blade—right in the snout. I blocked the counterattack with my shield, used Tongue of Flame, another parry with the shield, and the second pig slowed down for a moment as it had to trot around its fallen comrade. I hit it with an Ice Blade and then jumped aside to replenish my energy a bit.
I covered myself with the shield against the advancing piggies, blocked the dash of the one that had full HP, and finished off the wounded one. Then I killed the last one with four blows, parrying its counterattacks, took a deep breath and held it, waiting for the pain to abate.
I decided against using a vial with a healing potion—it was best to be frugal with those. They only worked once a minute, anyway, so I'd only use them as a last resort. I recovered my HP in about 15 seconds. With Raey's earring, my HP regeneration out of combat was a little over two percent per tick. Just standing next to these carcasses reeking of putrefaction was already revolting, but I had to approach and touch each of them with my hand to collect the loot. I didn't find anything special on the carcasses—each contained a tail and a tissue sample. The boar also had a pair of tusks, but I doubted those cost more than a few coppers.
The result was far from encouraging—I got less than one percent of experience, and the pack of pigs cost me nearly a third of my HP, but that was with me nearly going all out, and with my Toughness being a whopping 33%. It took me about thirty seconds to kill all three pigs, but I felt no immediate desire to challenge the next pack—it's hard to force yourself into such a masochistic activity.
I found one thing rather weird—this time I felt pain throughout the battle, but my fights with skhiarta's brood and the giant wolf were different. You didn't need too many smarts to see why—the previous times my system was pumping out enormous loads of adrenaline and I truly hated my adversaries. As for the pigs, I merely saw them as regular quest mobs containing tails, tissue samples and other crap of the same sort.
No, that wouldn't do. They were no mere mobs! These beasts were in the way of my revenge! I cast Shackles on two pigs, binding them with the spell. Then I leaped at the boar before it could dash at me and struck out with Ice Blade. These beasts stood between me and the bastard who had fractured my bones in his basement! Two more flourishes, and the boar fell on the black loamy soil, and I rushed toward the remaining two without waiting for the spell to wear off.
"You left me here to die, Cheney!"
I hit one of the immobilized mobs a few times before the spell effects wore off and the pigs turned toward me to attack.
"And I kept dying the whole damned day!"
Fury took hold of me completely.
"How dare you stand in my way!"
A few more blows, and the last pig fell to my feet with a
death rattle, my blade in its eye. I distractedly collected the loot and waited for the HP bar to refill, examining the carcass at my feet. The pig snout with an ugly hole in its eye socket suddenly assumed the familiar features of my Enemy.
"Yes, you bastard," I spat out the words, nearly gagging on my hatred, "the same is gonna happen to you!"
I cleaned my blade of bits of grayish flesh, raised my eyes from the corpse and looked out on the field.
"But I have survived—yes I have—and I'm coming to get you!"
With a bestial roar, I pounced on the next pack...
It took all my willpower to stop at dusk. I was standing near the wood adjacent to the field, covered in gray goo from head to foot. There were pig carcasses everywhere, emitting a horrendous stench of death. Some had already disappeared, leaving gray blotches of an irregular shape on the ground, but the ones I could see were enough to conclude it had been a productive day. It took nearly six hours of ceaseless farming, but the fields on both sides of the road were completely undead-free. I had 144 tails in my bag and lots of assorted yucky stuff such as fangs and stomach fragments—today's trophies. Time to head for the village. The piggies would start to revive before too long—the process was known as "respawning" and it began about six hours after a mob's death. Incidentally, could this be why RP-17 had extended the time it took players to resurrect from two minutes to the same six hours? We're all mobs here. I chuckled and set forth toward the village.
I had leveled to 76 on the tenth pack, and the experience bar had crawled to 14% since then. Toughness and Focus had also increased by 1% and 2%, respectively. I allocated the free talent point to the last connecting skill before Silence, and used stat points in the usual way—by dumping them into HP. You could never have enough, after all.
The two road sentries got a better grip on their pikes and looked at me with some concern. But then, recognizing me as the mage who'd passed their way a few hours ago, they lowered their weapons and stood aside, letting me through. Neyl gave me seven gold coins, wincing at the smell and muttering something about crazy necromancers under his breath. He recommended to dump all the stuff that fell from the pigs into the pit by the side of the road, and I followed his advice five minutes later.
As I reached the inn, I went upstairs quickly so as to not expose the locals to the stench that came from my armor. I entered my room and went right into the shower without taking off the armor, and opened the faucets fully. The armor would have cleaned itself by the morning, and the room was well-ventilated, but I hated the thought of leaving my equipment in such a horrendous state.
The tails I handed in didn't bring in much experience—the bar moved to 21%. Looks like I'll have to stay here for a long while, was my final thought before I drifted to sleep.
***
The remnants of stone walls formed a trapezoid around the ancient castle. There were four destroyed towers in the corners—like ever-vigilant sentries, they eyed the surrounding area with the dark pits of their embrasures. I could see the ruins of the structures that lay inside the perimeter and the sinister remains of the castle keep. The area around what once used to be a castle was peppered with large rock, with groups of zombies and skeletons maneuvering in between.
Around two weeks and a half had passed since my arrival to Urcahnta. I had managed to waste so many pigs, wolves and bears in the surrounding area that animal rights activists would definitely have placed a bounty on my head if it were happening IRL. Half a month of endless farming, ten to fifteen hours a day, had made me so weary that one sight of the local fauna made me ready to retch. However, level 82, fully studied Silence, and 43% Toughness were totally worth it.
I no longer had to recollect Cheney to invoke this fury—simply entering combat sufficed. Rage no longer blinded me—I never lost touch with reality. Fury and hatred seemed to have become inverted in some way, and now I could only sense them remotely. Pain would only come after the loss of half my XP, so I was quite content with myself.
Today I decided to sneak into the ruins and take a good look around. The levels of the local fiends (79-80) and the packs of three or four skeletons or zombies didn't scare me at all. On the contrary, it was much easier to use the shield for blocking the strike of a former humanoid than to parry a side blow of a bear's paw or the attack of a wolf clinging to the very ground.
Earth Shackles bound a tall skeleton with a two-handed sword, and the bonehead running my way with a club was met by an Ice Blade. Then I cast Silence on the third skeleton, whose hands became surrounded by dark flashes indicating that it was preparing to cast a spell. I used my shield to parry the strike of an ironclad club, sending my first opponent to be reborn again with two strikes, and then cast Ice Blade once again, getting the dead sorcerer who had swung a club at me right in the head—the stupid mob was deprived of his capacity to cast spells for ten seconds and decided to try his luck in a melee attack, of all things. The blade's Frost kicked in, and it took just one more blow to make the hapless lich's bones fall to the ground with an icy clangor. The enormous skeleton's dash stunned me for a second and a half, and I failed to parry a powerful strike with the two-handed sword that knocked off almost a quarter of my HP. Before the warrior skeleton swung again, I managed to land two blows, then crouched, with the second blow swinging over my head, and struck the warrior in the exposed side. There was a cracking sound—I'd knocked two ribs from his ribcage. Before he managed to react, I chopped off his head with my final blow. I calmly waited for the pinkish HP bar to refill and bent over the bones scattered underneath my feet.
Skeletons are no fat cats for sure, I grunted. Thirty three copper coins, three quest skulls, a rusty ax and a few pieces of woolen fabric—not what I'd call a good haul! You'd need to kill about a hundred mobs hanging around the area to earn a single gold coin. Oh, and Neyl ran out of money on the third day. The magistrate had allocated only fifty gold coins of bounty money, of which nifeteen had been claimed by local hunters.
The captain took a long and thoughtful look at me as I just returned to the village and told me that a necromancer he knew in Nittal was looking for an assistant, and that if there was anyone he could think of recommending, it was yours truly.
I thanked him for caring so deeply about my career and that I would think about it, and took his last gold coin. Good thing I was still getting experience for these quests, or I would have needed those skulls about as much as an oyster needed a parasol.
The sun was beginning to set, painting the ancient castle ruins in somber crimson and wine red hues. I looked toward the fallen gate. Another three hundred yards or some fifteen packs of the undead were blocking the direct way through with their aggro zones. And there were more in the courtyard. All right, no use tarrying—I need to take a look at the dungeon today. I chose the next group of fiends as my target and cast Shackles on the far skeleton armed with a sword and shield…
All that remained from the keep was a story and a half. The hexagonal building, once formidable, looked squalid and dilapidated, and even the narrow slits in the walls could hardly scare anyone now. It only took me an hour and a half to get there—most of the time was spent on entering the gate of the castle and wiping out most of the mobs roaming the courtyard. I didn't get much richer—all I got was the copper equivalent of eight silver coins and an unusual helmet for level 71, as well as skulls and pieces of woolen fabric that filled my bag.
The entrance to the main part of the castle doubled as the entrance to a level 75-80 instance designed for a group of three to five. It was at the end of a fifteen-foot passageway, some sections of which had crumbled down. Another week of farming and I should be able to take a look inside and say hello to whoever lived in the castle.
Something glittered on the ground—some ten yards away from the keep's wall, pockmarked by centuries. I came closer and saw a rusty dagger on a gray stone. This is weird—how did a level 190 dagger end up here? As the thought occurred to me, I heard a horrendous grating noise. I noticed a blu
rred movement to the right, upon a protruding part of the wall, and turned instantly, grabbing the shield with my left hand. A powerful blow threw me back onto the cobblestones, and an agonizing pain seared my body—it felt like being caught in a mangle.
Gh'khorsh the Stone Gargoyle hits you for 4742 damage.
Attention! You are stunned!
As I was falling, I cast a teleport spell to a point some twenty yards to the side, shaking off the stun and evading the blow of a level 232 stone gargoyle. The six-and-a-half-foot bulk looked like an inflated bodybuilder with membranous wings. It landed at the very spot I'd just left with a crash. The appalling simian snout with huge fangs made a sharp turn toward me, its yellow eyes flashing. The muscled and taloned paws flexed. The gargoyle was preparing for another leap.
It took a Herculean effort, but I managed to rise again and meet the monster's leap standing, holding my shield in front of me...
Gh'khorsh the Stone Gargoyle hits you for 288 damage. You die.
***
Attention! Your character's death has resulted in the loss of 20% of your levels. Your current level is 65.
Attention! Your character's death has resulted in the loss of 51 stat points. Your current stats are distributed as follows: Agility—10, Strength—71, Constitution—72, Intellect—72, Spirit—72, Vigor—60.
Shit! Shit! Shit! I was sitting at the graveyard near Urcahnta and looking at the moon hanging in the darkened skies, my back to a gravestone. Seventeen levels gone just like that! The damned gargoyle had completely nixed all the progress made over the last three weeks—my current level was even lower than right after Shaartakh's demise. Neyl was telling the truth—those hunters didn't just disappear (I'd been under the impression the NPCs were falling prey to the undead wreaking havoc). As it turned out, a named mob was to blame.