Name: Ferrawolf Hide

Type: Crafting Material

Option: Reduces damage taken by Abyssal Creatures.

Quality: 8%

“That’ll probably be useful someday.” Aegis said as he placed it in his inventory. While standing up from skinning the boss, he and his companions spotted Galanis, Eccen, and the 5 other players rushing across the grassy fields towards the river that separated them from the keep. “We should go too,” Aegis pointed.

“Barging in the front? I’m down.” Darkshot replied while Lina nodded. The three took off into a sprint across the fields. By the time they’d reached the river, Galanis’ group had made it to the other side and engaged a group of Cultists just outside the walls.

Aegis, Lina and Darkshot made it across in time to intercept another two Cultists that were rushing to join the fight. When Aegis charged in front to get their attention, all he could do was shout at them. It worked for a moment, but a single action from Galanis’ group drew them away. Lina was able to jump in with Darkshot to Pinning Shot them and finish them off before they got far, though.

“Man, this is… this is going to really be a problem isn’t it?” Aegis sighed as Galanis’ group finished killing their enemies and started walking over.

“Thanks for taking out the wolf. What quest are you working on?” Galanis asked them.

“Finding the poison source.” Aegis replied.

“Oh, good, an Eirene priest. I was worried there wouldn’t be any left. We’ve got a quest to kill the leader, then we’ll look for the suffering magic object we’re supposed to destroy. If I see the poison source, I’ll try to let you know.”

“Ditto.” Aegis gave him a nod.

“Good luck.” Galanis replied, turning to head into the keep now that the entrance was clear, but Aegis noted he was wielding a shield and mace, leading the charge not unlike him.

“Hey, Galanis. You’re a priest who takes hits, right? How do you keep the monsters focused on you?” Aegis asked as Darkshot and Lina stood behind him. Lina looked as though she wanted to answer, but resisted the urge.

“Heh, yeah, I’m aiming to be a Paladin if I ever make it to intermediate. Well, I just hit them with my mace, and if they’re far away, I’ll smite them…”

“Is there a way to do it without attacking?” Aegis asked. Once again, Lina resisted the urge to answer on Galanis’ behalf.

“Without attacking? Uhm…” Galanis gave him an awkward stare. “There’s some auras and stuff from intermediate’s that aggravate monsters, but… At a low level like ours? The only thing I can think of is a lure, but, using one of those in a dungeon is basically suicide.” Galanis thought this suggestion was ludicrous, but Aegis’ face lit up.

“What’s a lure? How do I get one?” Aegis asked excitedly.

“Uh… well…” Galanis turned to Eccen. “Hey Eccen, you were leveling alchemy right? Do you have any lure mixtures?”

“I think I made one just to see if the recipe worked. Yep, it’s here.” Eccen pulled out a vial of blue liquid with tiny grains of white sand floating around in it. “I can sell it to you if you want. 5 gold for the mixture, 15 gold for the recipe.” Eccen grinned.

“Deal!” Aegis said before Lina could stop him. He pulled the gold out of his inventory, it left him nearly broke, using up the last of his funds from his selling of Rockjaw steaks.

Name: Lesser Lure Mixture

Type: Crafting Material

Quality: 38%

Description: Combine this Mixture with remnants of any creature to create a Lure. Works on enemies of level 15 or lower.

Once Aegis looked at it, he stared back at them. “So I need to mix it with Cultist blood for it to work?”

“Yep. To craft the mixture you’ll need these…” He fiddled with his interface for a moment and eventually took out a parchment, handing it to Aegis. Aegis looked it over, the materials were all herbs that he recognized, things that he’d already seen around Orm forest. “Great, thanks.”

“No problem, good luck.” Eccen waved before joining up with the others again, and as a group of 7 they moved ahead into the keep.

“This thing is really easy to make. How effective is it?” Aegis wondered aloud, and as if she had been holding her breath the entire time, Lina rushed to answer.

“It’s really dangerous, all enemies within a certain radius will focus on you, even through walls. Also that mixture is not worth 5 gold, and the recipe is a really basic recipe you can find in the user manual.” Lina blurted out quickly.

“Wait you’re saying he just charged me 15 gold for something in the manual?” Aegis looked ahead at Eccen’s back with a glare as their group engaged more cultists within the courtyard of the keep.

“Yep.” Darkshot put his hand on Aegis’ shoulder. “You’re not famous anymore, time to face the harsh realities of the Shattered World. But hey, your first scam wasn’t that bad.” Darkshot spoke as if he knew more about the subject than he actually did.

“Want me to kill them?” Lina suggested, all too willingly.

“No, guys, relax. The priority here is to finish this quest… it’s been a few days since I started it, I’m worried about the sick villagers. If I don’t get back fast enough they’ll probably die.” Aegis replied as he knelt down to fill a cultists blood into the mixture, the body of the cultist was in the process of despawning via disintegration.

“You really care about those NPC’s, huh?” Darkshot commented.

“Eh… it just felt bad, seeing them sick and upset, even if it isn’t real, all this feels real. I don’t want them to die just because I didn’t take their problems seriously…” Aegis’ voice trailed off as he thought about it. Lina stepped forward smiling at him.

“Okay, let’s find the poison source!” She cheered.

Level Up!: Alchemy reached level 2!

Acquired: Lesser Darxon Lure [Quality: 26%]

Name: Lesser Darxon Lure

Type: Consumable

Quality: 26%

Duration: 1 Hour

Uses: 5

Effect: Lures Darxon type Creatures in a radius around the affected creature. Radius is proportionate to the quality of the lure and how much is used at a time.

Description: Apply this lure to a player or NPC to draw the attention of all enemies within a certain radius of a certain type into attacking them. Only works on creatures of the specified type that are level 15 or lower.

Lina watched Aegus hold out the vial of the completed lure, looking at it curiously.

“Be careful when you apply it on yourself, not too much at once or the radius will be really big.” Lina spoke worriedly.

Aegis nodded as he uncorked the vial. He was tipping the vial over his shield and armor carefully at first when a sudden loud, earthshaking explosion rang through their ears. Lina and Darkshot turned to see the source of the sound. Looking through the threshold of the keep’s front gate, beyond the courtyard where Galanis’ group was fighting and up on the top floors of the keep’s main building itself at a cloud of smoke and debris. From within the cloud several silhouettes could be seen moving about.

Aegis looked up as well to see the dust settle. A large muscular dark green skinned orc player was in the process of battling several cultists, wielding a longsword, and it became apparent the sound had been a result of his fight. As Aegis watched him, his mind was elsewhere, still concerned with the villagers wellbeing. Seeing the strength of his allies up until now, and the weakness of the cultists battling in front of him, he took a deep breath and poured the entire lure over his shield.

“Huh… looks like another player was already in this keep.” Darkshot commented, but his and Lina’s view of the orc was cut off by a group of 8 cultists suddenly charging out of the gatehouses on either side of the keep’s entrance, all rushing towards them. “What the heck? Why are they coming for us?” Darkshot asked confused, as both he and Lina turned to Aegis and saw the empty vial in his hand, the mixture fusing into his equipment as he gained a lure debuff lasting 5 hours.

“It'll be faster like this, right?" Aegis shrugged.

“W-we should probably run…” Lina suggested as several crossbow bolts flew in their direction from the cultists, but Aegis charged forward with his shield out to block them.

“No time to turn back now, gotta save the villagers!” Aegis smirked.

“If I didn’t know better Aegis, I’d almost think you’re starting to like this game.” Darkshot sighed while smiling as well, drawing an arrow in his bowstring. Lina saw their reactions and drew her daggers without any complaints, looking as though she too was enjoying herself.

“Multishot, Piercing Shot!” He shouted, and from his bow fired three oversized piercing shots that passed through the cultists. They flinched from the damage but none of them fell, and they all got in the attacking range of Aegis.

Another bolt was fired from a crossbow that Aegis was able to block, following that he had several bladed weapons swinging down at him and from the sides. To accurately block all the attacks he had to keep moving and maneuvering his shield placement to be sure not to get surrounded. In that time, Darkshot redirected his piercing shots to pass through a few of them again while Lina focused the crossbow-wielding cultists down first, killing them quickly and moving on to the next highest threat.

Congratulations, you have reached level 7!: 3 attribute points available, +67 health, +32 mana!

The damage was hefty, Aegis had to heal himself down to 0 mana before the fight was over, and looking at his interface he saw that Darkshot was also struggling on resources. From the bodies dropped several scraps of cloth and low quality equipment, as well as some coin pouches. Aegis modified the party distribution to automatically split the money while he picked up the other junk, simultaneously adding his three attribute points to spirit to help his mana recovery.

“The experience is good from these guys, but, I’m surprised my Shield Mastery didn’t go up. It hasn’t really budged at all lately.” Aegis commented.

“What level is it?” Lina asked while keeping watch for more enemies.

“21.”

“Dang, 21 already? That’s hella fast! You’re almost at intermediate!” Darkshot exclaimed.

“Once you hit 21 the levels will slow down a lot, so that’s normal, getting to 30 takes a lot of work… Or, so I’ve heard…” She awkwardly twiddled her fingers. Aegis took out a Rockjaw steak and swallowed it whole while nodding to her. “Whelp, I’m about ready for round two. Where do you suppose they’re hiding the creature for the poison?”

“Prolly a cage or something. Maybe there’s a dungeon under the keep?” Darkshot suggested as Aegis walked eagerly into the keep’s courtyard.

“Ah, Aegis, wait, don’t move forward so quickly! We don’t know how effective the lure is!” Lina warned as she followed after him.

“The more effective it is, the faster we can clear this place, right?” Aegis replied. A few meters ahead, Galanis’ party was in the process of fighting a group of 5 cultists, while up on the upper walls of the keep the Orc player was battling 3. When Aegis stepped forward towards the center of the courtyard, no enemies immediately visible, he felt confident and kept moving forward. The orc player up top however spotted several cultists rushing out of the upper level rooms of the keep onto the walls where he stood.

His initial reaction was to jump back defensively, preparing to deal with the influx of enemies, but they completely ignored him and ran past the ones he was fighting, instead moving to the edge of the walls to scale down them, all glaring at Aegis.

Galanis’ group saw a similar event unfold. The front doors leading into the keep's main building swung open and a swarm of at least 20 cultists charged out. It initially looked as though they were targeting Galanis’ group, but instead rushed beyond and ran towards Aegis.

There was an audible slapping sound as Lina hit her palm to her forehead, while Galanis’ group and the orc quickly realized what was happening.

“Oi, Aegis, don’t tell me you applied the entire lure on yourself all at once?” Eccen shouted back in disbelief.

Aegis winked back in response as he spotted the hordes of enemies coming for him.

“I told you, using lures in dungeons is suicide, especially in dungeons with close quarters!” Galanis shouted back at him. “Just run, or you’re done for!” As Galanis shouted, several side doors leading into the courtyard from the outer walls of the keep opened, more cultists piling in.

“Aegis, we running? That’s a lot of guys!” Darkshot nervously stumbled back while holding an arrow in his bowstring. For a moment, Aegis felt fear, there were at least 40 enemies and climbing. He looked to Lina who stared back at him as if waiting for instructions, then turned to look at Darkshot, and the way out of the keep behind him. To his surprise, the first thought that entered his mind was that running away didn’t sound fun at all.

“Isn’t this… just a really fast way to clear the quest?” Aegis shrugged to them with a nervous smile.

“Haaah. Whatever, I need to study for my exams anyway.” Darkshot rolled his eyes back at him. “Multishot, Piercing Shot!” Darkshot shouted, firing arrows at the incoming cultists.

“That guy, he’s not running?” One of Eccen’s group watched in disbelief, having just finished dispatching the cultists they were engaged with. The cultists drew their weapons and closed in on Aegis as he dug his feet in and raised his shield up.

“I’ll focus on the ranged ones so you don’t have to worry about shadow magic or crossbow bolts.” Lina said as she jumped into the fray, rushing past the initial group of cultists - they ignored her in favor of running towards the lured player, making it easy for her to reach the backlines.

The clash began. Swords, Axes, Daggers, Quarterstaffs, even fists all began to pummel down on Aegis. The attacks were constant, giving him little time to think. As long as they were hitting his shield, the damage was manageable, but he quickly gave up on trying to Brace all of the attacks and instead just focused on swinging his shield in front of every blade.

Darkshot’s piercing arrows flew through the swarms of cultists multiple times as Aegis continued to back up, but they were slowly overtaking him and surrounding him. Just as a single axe wielding cultist managed to maneuver behind him and get a clean swing in, the axe was blocked by a longsword. The Orc player from the upper levels had jumped down to stand behind him, covering Aegis' back from attacks as the orc began to swing at the cultists in retaliation. These few seconds of cover allowed Aegis to stand still and cast heals on himself, while glancing to get a better view of the orc. [Rakkan - Level 16].

With Rakkan at his back, Aegis was able to hold out better and stand his ground, but more cultists were joining the fray, swarming over each other to get to Aegis, and his mana hit 0 incredibly fast. The cultists' numbers started to dwindle, but not nearly fast enough, and with his mana at 0 and his health at 100, he anticipated the worst.

“Okay guys, mighta been a bad idea… we sho-” Before he could tell them to abandon him and run, he received several heals that topped him back up. Glancing over, he saw Galanis and the priests in his group had joined the fight, Eccen included, and they were now watching his hitpoints to keep him alive. Eccen joined in Darkshot’s strategy of casting Piercing Shots while Rakkan began doing spinning sword attacks that hit everything around himself.

Aegis noticed that, while effective, the lure wasn’t capable of completely keeping attention on himself - cultists that were not easily able to get Aegis to attack him started switching targets to Rakkan, Lina, or other players around them, but the amount doing so was insignificant.

After a good 3 minutes of fighting together with everyone inside the keep working as a team, the cultist numbers dwindled down to a few stragglers. At that point, all players were left with no mana and resorted to using just basic attacks to take the final enemies down. Lina stabbing the final cultist in the back, ending the fight.

“You see… That was way faster... Wasn’t it?” Aegis said between gasping breaths, every one of them looking overexerted.

“You… You guys are insane…” Galanis smiled at them.

“I like your style.” Rakkan grinned, his voice deep.

“Man…Aegis… Playing with you is gonna give me grey hair by the time I’m 19.” Darkshot sighed. Aegis took the time to look over his notifications as everyone began gathering up loot, the loot dropping based on whichever party had dealt the most damage to the cultist when it died.

Congratulations, you have reached level 8!: 3 attribute points available, +79 health, +35 mana!

Level Up!: Shield Mastery has reached level 22!

Level Up!: Leather Armor Proficiency has reached level 17!

Level Up!: Minor Heal has reached level 15!

Attribute Up!: You’ve gained +1 Constitution

Attribute Up!: You’ve gained +1 Strength

Aegis looked over to see Darkshot had leveled up as well. “Alright, who's ready to keep going!?” Aegis stretched his arms, putting his points in spirit and watching his mana fill back up.

“Can’t we just take another few minutes? Just to relax for a second?” Darkshot groaned.

“But your mana is full? Let’s go.” Aegis started walking forward.

“Its, a- n-. Ahhh.” Darkshot tried to protest, but Aegis didn’t stop walking across the courtyard towards the keep’s main entrance, and from within they could already all hear the sounds of more cultist footsteps on the stone floors of the interior rushing to meet him. Lina and Rakkan were the first to walk behind him, followed by Galanis’ group and a reluctant Darkshot.