Chapter 54 - Worgen and portals

As the situation with Roberts came to a conclusion, Balthazar had nothing important to do. He went to his room and put himself in to the vita-nova pod. Though he had plans to meet old acquaintances of his past life who would be of help to him, he decided that it would be better to do sometime later.

The second he got into the game he got messages from a number of people. Merlin, Blue Dart and even Rudra. He also got a message from Robert to send him a friend request as he was unable to do so because he had blocked his friend request list.

Merlin wanted to talk to him about the goblin quest and Blue Dart about the new dungeon that was announced along with the completion of quest. There were also messages from Raging Blade and Quiet Fire inquiring about the same.

He quickly messaged both Blue Dart and Merlin that he was going to the enable the special dungeon within the hour. Most of the players have almost reached level 5. If he was any later, most of the players would probably start attacking him.

He had the special quest 'Hold back the wargs' given by the temple. He needed to complete it as soon as possible. He was just a little away from the level 5 due to the experience he received from crafting equipment. He had already received a decent amount of coins from his transactions with the Sirius Imperials and he brought a few basic supplies using the funds. He also went to the merchants to buy spices for his trip.

Vita-nova offered a wide variety of secondary occupations including cooking. Players could cook few dishes with herbs and meat from monsters which would provide buffs for small durations. Spices are usually used in cooking but sometimes these can also be used to throw off the scents of tracking pets or even stun monsters. As he was going to Blackrock hills on a solo mission, he decided to buy few just in case he needed it. They would definitely be useful against the wargs or any members which have a high sense of smell.

He quickly made his way to the blackrock hills. On the way, he found a few more wolves and blackrock wolves, and killed them finally allowing him to get the required experience to reach level 5. He also immediately allocated the free attribute points to vitality, strength and perception.

Character: Shadow Tyrant (Human)

Affiliated Village: Black Rock Village

Title: None

Job: Assassin

Level: 5

Exp: 5/2000

HP: 2200/2200; MP: 750/750;

Physical Attack: 80

Defense: 58; Attack Speed: 46; Movement Speed: 50; Willpower: 16; Balance: 26; Focus/Search: 32; Reflect: 1; Magic Resist: 9; Luck: *; Charm: *;

Attributes: Strength 40, Agility 35, Endurance 20, Intelligence 15, Vitality 30, Perception 16.

No Special Racial Attributes or weakness.

Free Attributes Points: 0

Within 20 minutes, he managed to cross the river and get to the place where he had first seen Elias Rotar. He had already marked the location of the cave where he fought alongside Elias on his map. So, he slowly made his way to the cave.

As he reached the cave, he saw that the entrance to the cave was larger than he remembered. It was not the same as he had left it. There was a wooden cabin by the entrance. There were also signs of explosions and battle. There were quite a few blackrock wolves patrolling at the cave's entrance.

"Blackrock wolves patrolling the entrance. This is worse than I expected it to be," thought Balthazar. He had half a mind to contact Merlin and others for help but decided against it. He went into stealth to observe the patterns of the blackrock wolves but couldn't find any opportunity to attack them individually.

Without the option he usually preferred, he could only try and observe the area in stealth if he could get any advantage from the surroundings. He went into the cave but then suddenly he received a notification that he couldn't without alerting the wolves.

To avoid a fight went back to the cave entrance and towards the cabin. He saw a worgen in the cabin though the window. It was clear that another worgen had come to the blackrock hills from the portal which he thought was destroyed.

[Althus] (Worgen swordsman)

Level 5;

HP: 3000;

The worgen had a couple of swords strapped on his back and he seems to be interrogating some one who wore the robes of the temple priests. There was also a green dot above it indicating that it is a friendly NPC character. "Must be one of the members sent by the temple," thought Balthazar.

[Rickard Holt - emissary of the temple] (Paladin elite)

Level 5:

HP: 2360.

The NPC was obviously injured and bleeding with its right arm broken. The worgen was kicking the tied-up NPC further while fiddling with its sword. After a few moments, the worgen stopped kicking the NPC, walked out of the cabin and into the cave.

Quest updated: Hold back the wargs: Save Rickard Holt and help him finish his mission.

"This is probably my chance to enter the cabin," thought Balthazar as he made his way to the door. But the door was locked. Luckily, he had learned the lockpick skill which still allowed him to enter without being detected. It was a simple lock and his five years of experience made it rather easy for him to open the door.

As soon as he closed the door, he got out of stealth and the NPC on the floor turn his head to look at him. "Who are you?" it asked as it noticed that Shadow Tyrant wasn't the worgen.

"Emissary Holt, I was sent here by the temple to check up on you and your team. You haven't reported back to the temple and they wanted to make sure that there were no issues with establishing the teleportation point," replied Shadow Tyrant as he leaned forward towards the emissary and untied him.

Holt pulled himself up and leaned against a wall and asked "You an adventurer? I have never seen you before at the temple."

"Yes, I was sent by the deacon to find out about your situation and assist you in case you need any support."

"Ah! I failed the temple today. Our company was ambushed by the worgens. There were four of them and 7 of us. They waited till we made the cabin to serve as our temporary base and attacked as we were about establish a teleportation point. Though they ambushed us the warlock and elementalist managed to kill them while giving up their own lives. May the lords have mercy on them."

"May the lords have mercy on them. Did their sacrifice manage to save the mission? What happened to the teleportation point?"

"Alas! That would be impossible without them. I am a paladin by profession. Even though I can perform a few holy spells, setting up a teleportation point by without them, isn't possible. Unless we get a teleportation disc, it is not possible to complete our mission."

"Well, it is a good thing that the kind deacon had provided me with a teleportation disc., so that we could establish another teleportation point," said Shadow Tyrant show him the quest item.

"You have a teleportation disc?! But that could be given to only members of the temple. How did you get a hold of it?" asked Holt looking at Shadow like he was an alien with his eyes wide open. It was clear that he began to doubt him.

"The deacon trusted me for this as I was the adventurer responsible for stopping the worgens from opening the portal in the cave in the first place," said Shadow trying to provide an excuse for the emissary who began to suspect him.

"That is fine. If the case is as you say, then you have a right to get involved in this operation as you are already aware of the danger and proved your allegiance to the cause," said Holt. He seemed to be searching the cabin for something.

"What are you looking for?" asked Shadow Tyrant looking at the NPC search around in the cabin.

"I need to bandage my hand. If we are to setup a teleportation point, we need to take out the wolves and most importantly Althus. Him being a worgen can control the wolves and we need to be in the best possible condition. He won't be away long. So, help me with this," he explained as he continued with his search.

They immediately found the first aid kit in the cabin and Shadow set the bone back and bandaged the NPC's arm. Shadow also gave it a health potion so that it could recover its health and heal the wounds.

"It is best we take him down inside the cabin unless you want to fight the wolves alongside him. The wolves are the main reason, they manged to defeat and capture me," suggested the NPC as it threw the ropes which tied him down towards Shadow Tyrant.

"Tie me up and stay in stealth while we wait for the worgen. We need to be as fast as possible when he realizes I am not tied up," said the NPC as he laid down on the ground where it was tied up before. Shadow quickly put the rope around the NPC's hands and he also gave him the sword which used before Merlin gave him his second dagger.

Once, Shadow was convinced that the NPC looked convincing enough to fool the worgen, he went back to stealth and hid by the door to wait for Althus.

In a few minutes, the worgen walked back to the cabin. After opening the door, it began to talk to Holt. "I still offer you an option to save yourself. Help me in stabilizing the portal and I shall allow you to live as a human pet in the great empire of Worgensbord."

He took out his knife and was just about to resume his torture when Shadow decided to use cheap shot to stun the worgen. Immediately Holt also got up and began attacking him as soon as Shadow got out of stealth.

Though Shadow managed to execute cheap shot to have the worgen, the stun would only last for 4 seconds. So, he also executed his shadow clone skill to increase the DPS on the worgen and also the time he could put the worgen in stunned state using cheap shot from the clone. But the doppelganger would also exist only for 20 seconds.

Once the stun duration of 8 seconds expired, the worgen started retaliating against them. Though Shadow managed to reduce the health of the worgen by a third in that time, it wasn't easy to continue after the stun duration was done. Even if Shadow managed to avoid the worgen's attacks, the NPC Holt couldn't evade them and was slowly losing health.

As the worgen reached 20% health, he went into an enraged state and started to try and get out of the cabin. Shadow could already hear the wolves howling outside and if the door opened, he would have to handle the wolves along with the worgen. In this situation, he had to force the worgen into focus on him or put him in a confused state. So, he took a packet of spice from his pocket and smashed it on to the worgen's snout.

Althus howled in pain and began to swing his blades at Shadow. With this Shadow managed to completely fix the worgen's aggro towards him allowing the NPC Hart to take a respite and recover itself. With the worgen's attacks failing to hit him, they managed to kill the worgen without any loss.

"That was a waste of good spice, but your method definitely had its own advantages in tackling worgens," said Holt looking at the dead body of the worgen.

"I agree. If we could just disperse spice in an explosion or something, it would get a lot more easier to handle wolves and wargs," said Shadow Tyrant checking the corpse for loot. He got a sword and a worgen flesh from it. The sword had a 4-foot-long curved blade and was clearly one of the swords that the Althus used to fight.

[Worgen Scimitar] (BlackIron One-handed sword)

Level 5

Equipment Requirement: Strength 15;

Attack Power +16;

Attack Speed +5;

Durability: 25/25

Shadow Tyrant pocketed them into his inventory and asked the NPC to stay while he scouts the situation outside. The wolves have retreated away from the cabin with two of them at the entrance of the cave. He was surprised that two remained behind. He also went a bit far ahead and noticed that the remaining wolves were hiding a distance away from the cave.

This didn't sit well with Balthazar as he couldn't understand the behavior of the wolves after the death of the worgen. It was as if another character was controlling the wolves. But couldn't find any other character or monster nearby other than the wolves.

"There are a couple of wolves at the entrance of the cave where we need to setup the teleportation point. These can be easily handled by the two of us. But I doubt that some other entity is nearby and waiting to ambush us. I think we should call in for reinforcement," said Balthazar to the NPC.

"Let us take care of the wolves and then see. Even if there is someone waiting in ambush, it is obvious that they are weak and hence waiting in ambush. Else, we would have been attacked directly. If any other worgen is controlling the wolves, they were definitely seriously injured," replied the NPC.

"To setup the teleportation point all we need to do is put the teleportation disc down and pour mana into it. I wouldn't be able to move from my position while I am setting it up. You need to cover me, in case anyone attacks. I doubt a weakened worgen would be able to get past you" continued the NPC as it got out of the cabin.

Quest updated: Hold back the wargs: Guard Rickard Holt as he sets up the teleportation point.

The pair of them easily subdued the two blackrock wolves and Holt began to channel mana into the teleportation disc. A light blue light enveloped both the disc and Holt. A black balll suddenly shot towards them from the cave as a worgen stepped out. Luckily, Balthazar had already felt that him being unable to enter the cave was somewhat odd and was already prepared for an attack from the cave. So, he deflected the ball with the new sword with ease.

"Finish him, I can setup the disc on my own. The wolves can't harm me," said Holt as he smashed a small violet ball on the ground beside him. A yellow holy light shield immediately surrounded the NPC preventing monsters from attacking him.

"The minor orb of protection," whispered Balthazar to himself as he realized what the violet ball was. It was one of the most desired tools that can be obtained from the temple which can used to protect oneself from attacks below tier 2 for a minute.

As he knew that the Holt would be safe from the wolves' attacks for a period of one minute easily, he ran towards the worgen that came out of the cave to attack it.

[Mathus] (Worgen warlock)

Level 5

HP: 1000/3000.

The worgen warlock wore burnt up clothes and clearly had a lot of burns on his body. He was definitely injured during the ambush of the worgens on the team from the temple. It was easy to handle even though he couldn't use the shadow clone skill.

But the worgen looked like it was already in a berserk state, blood was leaking out of his wounds and evaporating. A large number of shadow bolts about 50 continued towards Shadow Tyrant and Holt. It was like the worgen warlock had could use multiple instances of the same low-level skill. It was like an AOE skill. It was clear that it was using one of the racial specialties of the worgens, blood-magic. This allowed the worgen to have different magical effects in place of losing its health.

Though the shadow bolt was a low-level skill and Balthazar could escape them in general, such a large number was hard for even him to escape. He was quickly hit by a few and after that a dark bind was cast by the warlock holding him down. Dark bind would easily hold a target in place for thirty seconds, but the slow casting speed of warlocks always limited it and this is the reason he realized that the worgen used so many shadow bolts. They were just the diversion while shadow bolt was the main attack.