Chapter 21: Where Demons Wake

Chapter 21: Where Demons Wake

Cael walked back towards the centre of Kruxol down a cobbled street towards the South of town. On his way, he saw an archer and a warrior gingerly walking towards the small woods South of Kruxol, both casting superstitious glances towards the dark-brown, pyramidal temple a short way to their left. Cael surmised that the players had probably been warned about the temple's guards, who would attack and one-shot any intruders who were not in the Mage class or in a Mage's party.

Cael quickly walked up to them, and spoke politely, "Hey, are you guys worried about the temple guards? If you're in a Mage's party, they won't attack you. I can invite you guys, if you want."

The male warrior turned around, and replied in a Czech accent from behind a large helmet, "Thank you! We are not entering the temple, though, that is fine?"

"Yes, as long as you are in my party they will not attack. It doesn't matter if you're entering the temple or just walking past it to the South."

"A grand idea. My friend here, Ron, he said there was good quests down South. But our Guild leader warned us that temple guards could kill in one hitting, so are careful."

"I see. Are you from Eastern Europe, by any chance?"

"Yes! I am from Czech Republic, he is from Slovakia. We always play on English servers to avoid the Russian hackers, haha."The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

"Interesting," said Cael, smiling, "I am also from that region, Belarusian, and moved to Czech Republic early. Even have a Czech name, but can't speak the language. Now currently in the USA. Nice to meet you, Ron and Andrej."

"Thank you as well," said Ron, the archer. He was much shorter than his warrior friend, and wore a mask that partially covered his face. Unlike [Andrej], Ron's character name was currently garbled, although Cael knew his nickname because Andrej had mentioned it. Cael guessed that it was short for Ronald. Andrej was higher-level, at level 23, but although Ron was only level 14 he seemed to have done more research about the game.

"Good luck! Be careful on the way back, the guards will still be here."

Using [Stealth Cloak], Crucis dashed between the two opponents. Using a [Stunning Dagger] strike near Andrej's neck to keep him still, Crucis used [Dagger Twist] to deepen the wound with a spin of his wrist, then spun his body swiftly around until his wrist was straight again. Facing the tortoise boss, he delivered a [Forceful Kick] to its face and sent it about a metre backwards, then threw out a [Smokebomb] which he had looted from Ron. This obscured the tortoise's sight, making it difficult for it to launch attacks. Crucis had a few smokebombs left in his inventory, and decided to release three more near the tortoise and [Andrej], so that they wouldn't know where to strike.

"Go away, Hashin!" shouted Andrej.

"I am not Hashin," said Crucis, truthfully.

"Well, you are demon like them!"

"Okay, true."

Crucis stepped on the fallen Knight to pin him to the ground, increasing his own Agility due to the [Trap Talisman]. The warrior flailed for Crucis with his sword, but the Assassin quickly leapt away, then crouched down and used [Silent Stab] to worsen the wound on the Knight's back just below the neck. He saw that the [Black Wristband] had caused his [Dagger Twist] to skip cooldown, so he quickly looked at the area around the wound and saw a faint rash slightly closer to Andrej's right shoulder. Lurching his dagger to the right, he used [Dagger Twist], and his Agility doubled so that he was almost effortlessly twirling his dagger through the wound. As he expected, the rightwards movement caused pressure on the rash near Andrej's shoulder, causing that to tear into a wider gash. Andrej let out a pained, gagging noise.

Using the doubled Agility, Crucis launched himself from a crouching position towards the tortoise, that he glimpsed lumbering out of the thick smog. Since [Stunning Dagger] was still on cooldown, Crucis struck with a simple [Punch] to the creature's face, expecting the speed of his trajectory to do most of the damage. The fast collision caused the tortoise to fall backwards sharply, and Crucis saw that it had been enough to kill the boss. He saw that part of his rewards for killing the boss included [Vile Toxin Gas], which could be sprayed on a weapon to give it a temporary venomous effect but reduce its damage significantly while this effect was present. Archers occasionally used this for backup weapons like knives, since those were often not that damaging anyway and the venomous effect made them more potent.

However, Crucis took the gas and sprayed some of it into Andrej's face, through the gap in his helmet, and also sprayed some towards the wounds on the warrior's back. He heard Andrej crying in agony and smashing the floor. Walking in to finish the warrior off, however, he found that Andrej lunged at him with a loud howl, forcefully swinging his blade in a wide arc towards Crucis. Using [Dodge Step], Crucis narrowly backstepped out of the way of the strike, then quickly threw a [Smokebomb] to confuse the warrior. Glibly, Crucis said, "You should have taken off your armour if you wanted to run away," then sidestepped quickly. As expected, the warrior prepared a heavy strike in the direction of Crucis' voice, but Crucis had by now walked a few steps to the side. When he saw the warrior's sword swing aimlessly in the air, he used [Agile Step] to approach the warrior and slashed across their back with a wide [Ripper]. Due to the damage boost after the Dodge Step, this dealt a lot of damage and worsened Andrej's wounds. Andrej was now down to only 10% HP.

Crucis tried to grab Andrej in a [Chokehold], but the stronger warrior shrugged him off and shoved him to the ground with a shoulder. Rolling back to his feet, Crucis used [Stealth Cloak] again, this time to ensure that he could dispatch the warrior safely. Due to adrenaline and removing some equipment under Crucis' taunts, Andrej had managed to get to his feet, and Crucis smiled because Andrej was more vulnerable without the large armour. As the warrior lumbered around, Crucis snuck behind him and struck with [Stunning Dagger] to the warrior's now-unprotected right arm to keep his target still, then followed this up with a [Ripper] slash to the back of the neck. Andrej collapsed in a dead heap.

Crucis nimbly walked away from the corpse. He guessed that the white cottage might still receive intermittent low-level visitors during this night, and he decided to wait near it to see if any more victims appear. If there was nobody else there, then he might as well take a quest himself. He might get a new skill, after all, and he needed a strong first strike to take advantage of his weapon's damage increase when attacking out of stealth. The woods were quite quiet at this time, and he walked peacefully back towards the cottage. These low-level areas near Kruxol were generally avoided by big ganking Guilds, since if they tried to maintain a presence here then it would be easy for other Guilds to attack them since it was close to a town and often lacked shelter. While a few low-level members dying might lead to some scrutiny, big Guilds were unlikely to care that much during a turbulent period. The lax patrols sent in response to his earlier antics weren't strong enough to deal with the actual Hashin. The big Guilds had their hands full due to the prevalent ganking Guilds, and this left Crucis plenty of space for the moment.

He expected that, in about an hour, Ron would respawn and probably sound the alarm about DeathGang being in these woods. By then, he should make sure to leave. For now, he still had some time before anyone heard of these kills, and doing quests here could fill the time until his red name wore off, as well as bringing decent rewards.