With a certain amount of pride in the group, I could feel us home in on the most efficient tactics to clear these floors of mobs again and again. Every time I went up a level, I couldn’t help but imagine the large board in the Den and especially Blackridge’s reaction, should he be monitoring it (which I was sure he was). At the end of a long day, which left us hungry as we only took minimal toilet breaks, we were in fine shape. Our levels were Braja, Raitha and I 24, Grythiss 25, Sapentia 26 and Tuscl 28.
Thanks to the fact that the dark elf commander occasionally dropped a Setharian plate breastplate, both Grythiss and Braja were fully kitted out in magic armour. They looked impressive too, when the torchlight of the fourth floor was reflected in the scrollwork of the gleaming black metal. Our collection of forty-one medallions had been worth something too. Just before we unclipped, Tuscl had made the run back to Carrickmor to hand over the medallions and complete the Vengeance quest. A noticeable exp boost was the result as well as an Iron Shield of Fire Resistance, +2 AC and 25 per cent reduction in fire damage. A very nice upgrade for the grateful Grythiss.
Chapter 26
Onwards and Upwards
Three days later, I decided the time had come to push on up the tower. I’d been conservative about this. Why take any risks when we could progress without difficulty? True, cycling through the six floors of the tower that we’d explored was boring. Boredom, however, was a small price to pay for success. And it surely was a success that Braja, Raitha and I were 29, Grythiss 30, Sapentia 31 and Tuscl 32.
‘Isn’t it fascinating,’ I said to the group while we were working on the final group of dark elves. ‘That when we first came up here, we were on edge and the tower seemed intimidating. Now, this far at least, we’re almost at home.’
‘You have an idiom in the English language,’ replied Raitha, slashing at the flanks of our target, a dark elf wizard. ‘Familiarity breeds contempt. I believe that this applies here.’
‘Also,’ said Braja, ‘if we make a mistake now, it doesn’t mean a wipe. Whereas for most of Monday it would have.’
‘True. Well, we might wipe now, because it’s time to move on up after these.’ I was letting the fates know that we weren’t taking our success for granted.
When the battle was over, Tuscl rebuffed us all and I cast my four spells on myself: Swift as a Panther; Gather Shadow, Swiftshot (my level 21 archery self-only buff) and Leave no Trace. Then I took a look at the staircase up. After one flight of fourteen plain stone stairs, the route up doubled back on itself so I could not see what was above me.
‘Maybe stand over by the exit,’ I suggested to the others. ‘Give me some room to work with.’
As they complied, I set off, as quietly as I could (which was pretty quiet thanks to my Boots of Dark Elvenkind). At the top of the stairs was a hall with four doors on the far side of the room. Originally, the walls of the hall had been covered by a mosaic made of thousands of coloured stones. If I had to guess, I believe it might have told the story (anti-clockwise, unusually) of the necromancer’s victory over her hated enemy and how she made an artefact out of his skull. Whether by the actions of the ogres or the dark elves, however, the mosaic was damaged everywhere and a big chunk of the final section - where I guessed the skull was depicted - was completely smashed in. Shame, I’d have liked more of an insight into the history of Notrevity and of her tower.
Taking the left door, I opened it cautiously. A long, thin corridor with an opening to the right after ten metres. Not far beyond the junction were a pair of boots. Edging up towards them, I saw that there was a dark stain on the stone floor beneath the boots. Something unpleasant happened to a dark elf here. The corridor that came off mine was about five metres long and ended in a T-junction. Naturally, I took it rather than step beside those boots. At the T-junction the left branch went about five metres to another T-junction, while the right, pointing back parallel to the way I’d come, turned sharp left after eight metres. Great, some kind of maze. Forget it. I went back to the entrance hallway.
[Group] ‘Sorry for the delay, there’s a bit of a maze up here, no sign of mobs just yet and I’m anxious not to run into traps.’
[Group] ‘Take your time,’ Braja replied.
[Group] ‘There is no hurry,’ added Raitha, ‘we are having an interesting discussion about what this tower will be like when the game goes live. How many groups will it support and where will the camps be?’
[Group] ‘The dark elf commander will be one for sure,’ I observed.
I could picture Raitha nodding at this. [Group] ‘Exactly. It would be strange, though, to have the tower full of other player characters waiting on their targets to spawn. A lot of the ambiance would be lost.’
[Group] ‘Much as I’d like to listen in, we’d better drop the group chat; I’m trying another door and don’t want to be distracted.’
The door in question was the second from the left. It was locked. With my powerful strength, I probably had a good chance of kicking it open. For now, though, I left it and went to the third door. This opened quietly to a long, thin corridor with several junctions. More of the maze. Except there was an arrow drawn in red on the wall at waist height, pointing inwards. The picture was crude and the paint had dripped a little, as though raindrops were gathered beneath the arrow.
At the first junction, there was an X marked on one of the walls of the branching corridor and the arrow pointed onwards. Very well. I continued on, following the arrows until at last I came to a wide, open area. It was a kind of barracks with ten camp beds, each set up with a bag at their foot. Except the barracks were a new addition to what might once have been the lair of an undead minotaur. For in the room was an extremely lifelike statue of just such a creature: bull’s legs, stocky, if decaying, human torso, arms and hands and a bull’s head, one horn broken. It was the vividness of the pose and the fact that he was shaping up to swing his axe that made me think the statue was not so much a work of art as the result of the dark elves finding the creature in the centre of the maze.
Elsewhere in the room were six dark elves of various classes. They all conned impossible, apart from one in leather armour, who was very risky, i.e. four levels above me, so 33.
[Group] ‘Going to pull a group of six dark elves, thirty-three and above.’
[Group] ‘Dark elvesss musst die,’ said Grythiss encouragingly.
Retreating a few steps, I took out my bow, nocked an arrow and then inched forward until I could target one of the dark elves.
You have fired an arrow at a dark elf warrior and missed.
It did the trick though; immediately the gang of elves chased me back through the maze and down the stairs, where I waited for them in sight of my friends. I’d already swapped my bow back to my inventory as I’d run, so it was just a case of launching myself at the first of my enemies and trying to bite him. Except that as I did so, I crashed to the ground, confused and looking at the (very nicely fashioned) boots of my enemies.
You have been hit by a beam from a Wand of Petrification and have been turned to stone.
[Group] ‘Don’t pull!’ shouted Sapentia urgently. ‘Wait for them to leave.’
[Group] ‘Are you dead?’ asked Raitha. ‘Can you speak?’
[Group] ‘In group, at least.’
[Group] ‘Well, what does that feel like?’ Braja asked with a chuckle.
[Group] ‘Really strange. The tracker ball won’t move any more. I can feel and move my real-life limbs though, including my head, but the scene in front of me doesn’t change, so I’m out of synch with my avatar.’
[Group] ‘Enemiessss leave usss.’
From my restricted view, I saw the boots of the dark elves move away and I could hear them walking up the stairs.
[Group] ‘Anyone got a fix for this?’ I probably spoke anxiously. I certainly felt anxious. The lesson of the minotaur statue meant the condition was not going away any time soon. It was probably permanent.
[Group] ‘I could smash your head of
f with my magical mace?’ offered Braja cheerfully. ‘Then you can respawn.’
[Group] ‘It might come to that. Although what if I’m immune to weapons still?’
[Group] ‘That would be a cruel yet fascinating inversion of your situation. A true example of dialectic, where an immense positive is found, under certain very rare circumstances, to be an equally powerful negative.’
[Group] ‘Thank you, Raitha, for seeing the philosophical side of my predicament.’
[Group] ‘We ussse the glaive.’
Curiously, considering we were talking about my death, Grythiss’s idea was a relief. I’d begun to sweat at the horrible thought of being locked in statue form until we got some high-level cleric or wizard with a Dissipate Magic or Remove Magic to come to the tower. We could waste days as a result and even undermine the whole plan. Despite the fact I didn’t want him in my head, I couldn’t help but envisage at how Blackridge would gloat if I were stuck as a stone statue for days.
[Group] ‘Tuscl, Sapentia, anything?’
[Group] ‘No,’ they both answered at once.
[Group] ‘I could blow Nemain’s horn twice?’ offered Raitha. ‘Do you think that’s an evil effect you are suffering?’
[Group] ‘If it isn’t, I don’t know what is. But no, let’s save that for a group emergency.’ I sighed. ‘Okay, Grythiss, do your worst.’
The sound of footsteps approached and then, with a great clang, my vision wobbled.
You have been hit by a glaive for 2 damage.
You have been hit by a glaive for 2 damage.
You have been hit by a glaive for 2 damage.
Fortunately, my regeneration was ineffective while I was in this petrified condition. Otherwise, the process would take even longer, or worse, I might recover hit points faster than Grythiss could knock them off.
‘Mind if I take a seat?’ Braja spoke from out of view.
‘That looks comfortable, I shall join you.’ This was Raitha.
Sapentia, for the first time in a long time, sounded cheerful. ‘It is shame that I have no camera. This would be a good picture. I call it, “group leader provides seating for his team”.’
‘Are you sitting on me?’ I did my best to sound aggrieved.
‘Only while our lizardman chops through your neck.’ Braja chuckled and I did too. It was a bizarre situation and definitely a break from the grind.
At last came the messages I had been waiting for.
You have been hit by a glaive for 2 damage. You are on 0 hit points and unable to move.
You have been assassinated.
My respawn point was on the ground floor at the main door, where all was dark and quiet. It took me a few minutes to re-equip my four active spells and, crucially, to cast Swift as a Panther on myself. Then I triggered my Invisibility ability.
[Group] ‘On my way up.’
There was no difficulty slipping invisible past the Black Yhandis of the first three floors, on the fourth, however, one of them saw me somehow. There were several buffs that allowed you to see invisible (including one called, unsurprisingly, See Invisible) so I knew it was a slight risk running past them. All the same, it was disappointing to have triggered a train. Or was it? At least there was some experience to be had.
[Group] ‘Stay over by my body please everyone! I’m going to bring a train up the stairs and you can pull from it.’ Maybe this would work out. And if one of the mobs could harm me, I could always die again without wiping the group.
[Group] ‘Here.’
At the top of the stairs, I turned and faced my chasers, who quickly thronged around me. No damage. We were set.
Back in the grind again, it didn’t make much of a difference that I had no weapons or armour. I could still bite and keep the aggro of the mobs around me, while Raitha pulled (with arrows) one at a time to be taken down. The timing of the battle was good too. Just as the fourth floor Black Yhandis and the fifth floor dark elf assassin were finished, the sixth floor ones began to respawn and we worked our way through those too, bringing me to level 30.
After the battles were done, I walked over to examine my stone corpse. The head was upside-down, resting on the large hat like a cup on a saucer, with my foot I righted it, or at least, got it to face upwards at a bit of an angle. My mouth was wide, long teeth showing.
‘Most handsome.’ Sapentia laughed.
‘This would make a great souvenir.’ I bent down to see if I could put the stone head into my inventory. Immediately, a screen popped up on my UI showing all the items on my corpse.
Take all?
Why not? Although I guessed this would cause my corpse to fade, stone head and all. And so it proved.
‘Oh well. What should we do now? I don’t want to keep on being turned to stone. And I’ve an eye on that wand, it would be great to get it while there are some charges left.’
‘Agreed.’ Tuscl came across to me, her avatar as lithe and dark-haired as she was in person. ‘Is okay for me to offer advice?’
‘Of course.’ I was surprised she even asked.
‘We fight back down to exit, take a break and you ask everyone for a scroll or potion of Resist Petrification.’
‘Sounds good. Everyone happy with that plan? Let’s take a break from the tower then too, at least long enough to ’port to a town for our level forty spells.’
No one demurred. Although I had a reservation about the downtime involved, I couldn’t see another way forward and the additional experience as we cleared the Black Yhandis once more on the way down was useful, putting me past halfway to 31.
Once the slight giddiness I had from unclipping was gone - for a while after being in the game so long, I would find it hard to get used to a floor that didn’t move - I made my way into the Den, to be greeted by a big cheer. The room was half-full, lively and decorated for a party. Two giant silver number balloons were bobbing around near the roof: 3 and 0. Lots of streamers banged and popped and shrieked. Lots of smiles and sparkling, encouraging eyes faced me. And there was cake too.
When his amplified voice came through the speakers, I knew it was Watson who had arranged this moment and that he was trying to give my authority a boost. ‘Congratulations, Tom, on reaching thirty so quickly. Let’s give him another cheer everyone. Hip, hip…hurray!’
Heartening as it was to be the recipient of such enthusiasm, I was more concerned about the current obstacle in my path. So I hurried up to the microphone, where Watson shook my hand.
‘Well done, Tom, really.’ He leaned in to whisper, ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
‘No, it’s useful,’ I whispered back, then I turned to the crowd. ‘Thanks, everyone. It’s great to be making good progress. This is a team effort and I need your help to keep going. We’ve encountered a dark elf with a Wand of Petrification. Does anyone have a potion or scroll of Resist Petrification?’
There was a strange cross-current of behaviour in the room, half the people there were getting ready to cheer what they anticipated would be a celebratory speech from me and they were all smiles and chatter. The other half had actually listened to my question and were more thoughtful. After a long moment in which I said nothing further and the hubbub subsided, I tried again.
‘Does anyone have a potion or scroll of Resist Petrification?’
One, two…three hands went up.
‘Great.’ Katherine was approaching me, catching my eye and signalling she wanted to speak to me. ‘Can you come to the front and Katherine will arrange to get you teleported to the Tower of the Jewelled Skull.’ As far as I was concerned, that was the end of the impromptu gathering. It was time to get on with the project. Yet I sensed there were expressions of expectancy from the people facing me. What more could I say? ‘Thanks again. Enjoy the cake. We are doing really well and are on target to complete this project and win ourselves that bonus! Thanks.’
With that, and at least a half-decent round of applause I stepped down, took another handshake from Watson and turned to Katherine. �
��You don’t mind arranging those teleports?’
‘Not at all.’ Katherine smiled. ‘Tom?’
‘Yes?’
‘You are doing really well.’
Chapter 27
Bromgud
While the others went to Port Placida, I stayed at the tower and topped up on blood from the now low-level Black Yhandis. The downtime was also an opportunity to consider my character build over the remaining twenty or so levels. When I’d studied the Epic 2 guides, I’d been focused on playing the role of crowd control and kiter in the final battle with Mikarkathat. To that end, I’d long ago planned my attribute spend and spell lines, to ensure that I ended up with the most effective spells for interfering with the motion of the various adds that spawned during the battle. Now, however, there was to be no battle. Instead, it was an assassination attempt and I was the assassin.
Although there were a range of useful spells to assist a hunter using a bow, these were not so demanding in terms of spirit as constantly trying to pin down several opponents. The best archery buff in the game, Strike Like Lightning, had a relatively modest spirit cost and lasted forty minutes. It was clearly intended that a Hunter would have the spell on constantly. One conclusion that I came to, therefore, was that I should rebalance my planned attribute spend, from spirit to dex.
The spell lines to prioritise clearly had to be those benefiting stealth and archery. Obviously, if we had time (and money), I’d learn the maximum number of spells and pursue them all down their respective branches. In a situation of limited means, however, I had to think more carefully about this. Many spells were stand-alones, which meant I could buy and equip them whenever I reached the appropriate level. Some, however, came in lines, the more powerful version replacing the previous. Thus, Cold Arrow became Ice Arrow became Frost Arrow and finally Arrow of the Void. Not that I would be needing those for Mikarkathat. The fire line, on the other hand, would be worth obtaining.
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