Chapter 35 - The Cave and The Worgen

Balthazar continued to follow Elias along a rocky path on the Blackrock hills. He occasionally saw a treasure chest along the path but couldn't stop to loot them as Elias didn't stop on the way.

After a few minutes, a light enveloped around Elias as he leveled up. In vita-nova, even NPCs acc.u.mulate experience points and level up similar to the players. After the level up, the speed with which they went through the hills with much higher speed.

An hour later, they reached a small black cave. There were a bunch of wolves numbering about twenty monsters patrolling the entrance. A couple of the special elites were also along with the pack of wolves at the cave. Balthazar quickly pulled behind a large boulder to hide.

"There are far too many wolves there. Why don't I attract a few monsters which we can take down first? We can slowly take them down in smaller numbers. It would safer this way," suggested Balthazar to Elias.

"OK. We can try that, but I doubt the blackrock wolves wouldn't be easily fooled to leave the entrance," said Elias and began to wait behind the boulder.

"Attack them only after I give the signal," said Balthazar as he moved out

He quickly picked up a small rock from the ground and threw it on one of the elite wolves at the edge of the pack. This attracted a small pack of 4 of them towards Balthazar.

Balthazar quickly ran towards Elias. After he reached close enough to Elias, he said in a loud voice, "Attack!". Elias quickly rushed towards the wolves and smashed his shield against the wolves.

Being attacked by both Elias and Balthazar, the wolves were taken down in a minute. In this way, they managed to take down all the elite wolves but the blackrock wolves wouldn't budge however many times he tried.

"As I told you the blackrock wolves wouldn't move away from their guard positions," said Elias. He quickly took off towards the cave entrance and dashed towards a blackrock wolf and with his usual attack of smashing them with his shield.

Even though Balthazar donned two equipment and both Balthazar and Elias managed to level up since the took down the first blackrock wolf, they had a very hard time to take the two wolves down.

Both the blackrock wolves tried to flank them from two sides continuously. Balthazar had to run around one of the wolves and distract it continuously from Elias, till he managed to kill the other one.

Though he had a very high speed, the blackrock wolf was not slow and every attack from it cause a bleed effect if it hit him. Being an assassin, his defence and toughness was very low. So, Balthazar became walking pincushion trying to distract the blackrock wolf.

By the time, Elias was finished with one wolf, Balthazar had almost died. He had to take a health potion to stay alive. Elias began to attack the other wolf after he killed one and this gave Balthazar a small reprieve. He quickly went out to recover a bit of his health before he joined Elias back in the fight.

He also found a blackrock crystal and wolf fang from each of the blackrock wolves. After looting the wolves, they slowly went into the cave. The cave was completely devoid of the wolves. It was pitch black inside without a single light.

Elias pulled out a small torch and lit it. Then they could see that the wall of the cave was black and crystalline. Balthazar was shocked to see the cave. He quickly pulled out his pickaxe and struck the wall and a small black crystal fragment fell down, which he immediately picked up.

"Blackrock crystal fragment found. Can combine 10 fragments to form a blackrock crystal"

"What are you doing?" asked Elias stopping Balthazar. "We need to be quiet. Follow me silently," he continued as he moved deeper into the cave. It was like a long tunnel.

After they continued for a quarter mile into the cave, red light fell onto the floor from the far end of the cave. They silently continued forward towards the red light.

As they reached the end of the tunnel, they found a large enclosure. There was a bright red altar at the centre of the enclosure. There was a blackrock wolf bleeding from its neck and floating on the altar. Four elite wolves were at four corners of the altar and seemed to be connected by a string of blood.

An emaciated looking worgen in front of the altar holding a large sceptre with a large red ember at its top. A two feet long shield was between the alter and the worgen. The same picture of the griffin that was on the Rotar's crest quest item was there one the shield.

The red light was radiating from the worgen and it sceptre. A flickering small dark portal was slowly being formed atop the bleeding blackrock wolf. He was definitely a worgen summoner who is in the midst of some kind of ritual. "The shield it was using as a medium is surely the family heirloom that Elias is searching," thought Balthazar.

[Arsenus the Summonner](Worgen Boss)

Level 5;

HP:2000

"How dare the worgen use, my family's heirloom as a medium for their ungodly rituals," shouted Elias as he ran towards the worgen summoner. The worgen seemed to be completely involved in the ritual and didn't notice till Elias hit him.

"Quest updated: Rotar's Request: Help Elias Rotar stop the ritual to open the gate to the Wolhiem kingdom, get rid of the worgen menace and take back the heirloom shield."

With hardly any other option left, Balthazar went after Elias towards the worgen which was in the middle of a ritual. It was definitely a good option to attack the mage while in middle of the ritual.

As soon as Elias hit Arsenus, a shockwave emanated from Arsenus. It blew back both Elias and Balthazar into the walls of the enclosure.

Balthazar immediately got up and saw that a large amount of mana was being gathered from the four wolves around the altar to a large red ball atop Arsenus. He immediate realised that to be the animation before fire shower. It was a skill that mages could learn after level 40 and it had a strong blow back effect.

"Why would a level 5 boss, be using such a high-level skill?" thought Balthazar as he ran towards Arsenus to interrupt him. But however, much he and Elias hit Arsenus, it wouldn't budge or move. It just continued casting its skill without losing its health. There seemed to some sort of invisible shield covering him.

This continued till the fire shower skill was cast. A large number of fire balls plummeted down on Balthazar and Elias. They exploded on touching any surface. The explosions threw anyone that touched it to the walls of the enclosure. Balthazar evaded the balls with great skill but finally one of them hit him.

After his level up to level 3 and he equipped the gloves and boots, his HP raised to 850 points. But still a single hit cost him a third of his health. This was much better than what he expected. As much ash he remembered the original skill always took out more than 20000 HP from a player easily. "The skill was probably toned down to level 5 to match the boss," he thought.

He immediately got up and went into stealth. Arsenus was focused on Elias who was consistently blocking the balls with his shield. After the fire shower, Arsenus continued to bombard Elias with the basic mage skill 'Fire ball'.

He quickly sneaked to the back of Arsenus and used Ambush to attack him. But the result was same. He was still protected. He turned around and whacked Balthazar with his sceptre.

This caused Balthazar to fly away losing another 20% of his health, even though he managed to block the sceptre with his daggers. He had only 20% of his health and was in a critical situation.

He finally realized that he needed to somehow get rid of the shield, before he attacks Arsenus again. He ran around the place observing the transparent shield of mana around Arsenus.

Suddenly realization struck him as he realized that the shield is made of mana and every magic has a mana source. The mana shield was up even when Arsenus was casting fire shower. The only other source of mana, he could observe was the four wolves around the altar which were connected to the heirloom shield.

Even the quest update was hinting the same. It told him to disrupt the ritual. Attack Arsenus wasn't disrupting the ritual at all. He immediately began attacking the wolf nearest him. They didn't have any shield over them and began to lose health quickly.

"How dare a mere human adventurer dare to stop me!" shouted Arsenus turning towards Balthazar. He began throwing fireballs at him. But with his speed, he easily evaded the fireballs without stopping his assault on the wolf.

"Let me see how you persist with your annoyance," said Arsenus after the wolf lost half its health and immediately a transparent shield appeared over the wolf. Balthazar was surprised but it didn't stop him. He quickly moved to the next wolf.

Withing two minutes, two other wolves also lost half their health and a shield was placed on them by Arsenus. As Balthazar began to attack the last of the four elite wolves, Arsenus started the fire shower spell again. The mana around him started to condense into a large fire ball above Arsenus.

Having seen the animation for fire shower, Balthazar began to retreat immediately. "Don't stop. He can't put a shield on the last one. If he does, the shield around him will weaken," shouted Elias.

"Wow! What a helpful NPC?!" thought Balthazar as he resumed his assault on the wolf. In a few seconds, the last wolf was also covered with a shield as it lost its health.

Arsenus lost the shield around him at the same time, but he continued with incantation of the fire shower without stopping. Balthazar started towards Arsenus but he knew he wouldn't make it in time to disrupt him. Luckily, Elias bashed his shield into Arsenus and interrupted his spell. The mana around went berserk and the large fire ball above Arsenus dropped directly onto him.

Both Arsenus and Elias was surrounded by the flames and were in the explosion. They were inflicted with a large amount of high damage. They were also blown back from the altar towards the walls of the enclosure due to the resulting shockwave. Even Balthazar flew into the altar. Smoke filled up the entire enclosure. A notification popped up in front of Balthazar.

"Elias suffered high amount of burn damage. Rescue him. Death of Elias will result in failure of the quest."

The ritual finally stopped. The red light that was emanating from the shield and summoner ceased. Even the wolves fell down unconscious. Balthazar started to look around in search for Elias. As he got up his feet hit something metallic and dull gong sounded out.

The heirloom shield was at his feet. He tried to lift it up, but it was too heavy. He didn't have the adequate strength to use it. As he couldn't use it, he ran into the smoke in search of Elias. Unable to find him, Balthazar began to shout for him.

But the first to notice him was the Summoner a couple of fireballs smashed into him. The only upside of the situation was that the explosions cleared the smoke around him. He could finally notice Elias through the smoke. He was squatting down behind his shield, tired and still burning. Being a knight, he had a high resistance against physical attack but not much against magic and burn damage. He had only 5% HP remaining.

He made a running sprint towards Elias. "Elias, take a potion" he shouted giving him a small green potion. Elias quickly downed the potion and quickly regained his health. A basic healing potion healed up 800 HP but that filled up only 30% oh his HP bar.

Fire balls soon came onto both Elias and Balthazar. Balthazar quickly began running towards the altar. "Follow me," he shouted to Elias. As they reached the altar the elite wolves immediately attacked them.

"Don't worry about them. Your family's shield lies on the ground before the altar. Take it and use it," said Balthazar.

"I should be wielded only by the worthy, I can't use it without permission from the elders," replied Elias.

"Use it for now, else we might lose the shield to him and no one wants that," said Balthazar pointing towards Arsenus.

"You fools! if it was that easy to use the shield, I wouldn't have been using it as a simple medium for my magic," said Arsenus laughing in a howl.

"Okay. What you say makes sense," said Elias as he unequipped his own shield and equipped the shield on the ground.