The team filed in behind Ira as soon as he pushed the door open. They reflexively readied themselves and stopped when they realized that the room was empty.

No molemen trio. No one.

“Uh? It hasn’t regenerated?”

“The treasure seems to be, though,” Jonathan noted.

Laura reflexively moved to check the box before stopping and throwing an interrogative look at Jonathan. The man shrugged in advance.

“Basic equipment… basic container… and basic food?”

Laura emitted a sigh and opened the box. Jonas had half expected it to remain locked since they had not killed the guardians yet, but it open easily.

Laura confirmed the contents. A padded leather tunic – basic – and a miner’s satchel. And a “deep ration bar”, which looked as if someone had rolled large grains of wheat or something with a kind of grease, and pressed it in a flat shape.

“Okay. So, what happened?”

Jonas suddenly understood.

“Looks like someone came in, killed the guardians… and left without picking the chest.”

“Cowen.”

“Well, could be anyone disappointed with the chest. But yes, that’s exactly my thought. They’ve arrived. And probably not too long ago. I don’t know how fast the treasure chests re-lock themselves, but that can’t be that long.”

“Let’s head to the Plaza then.”

They did not have to make it far. As the six came out of the stairs in the plaza-like ruins, they spotted five people getting to the trail leading down from the small plateau. To everyone’s surprise, Alton emitted a massively loud whistle, making the visitors turn their head and stop.

“Greetings, Sims,” said the Imposing Knight.

“Good to see you again here, Cowen,” Jonas replied.

“Don’t taunt me, Sir Sims.”

Jonas lifted his hands in mock horror, before replying.

“Notice you did at least one lair.”

“We did that salamander tunnels when we arrived. Then I noticed ruins to the side and thought they’d be the ones you told us about. But we couldn’t budge the door.”

“Yea. I still think you need all the lairs to open the door.”

“I know you need to. I would still think your story to be a massive bag of nothing, but that guy here confirms your story,” she said, pointing out the impassive shape of Habborlain to the side.

“Uh?”

“Yes. It turns out there’s another unmovable door we are all intimately familiar with. It’s on our usual tier five – the one where we run major lairs to get everyone enabled for the next zone.”

“And nobody has all the lairs?”

“It’s very hard since you need to have both the major lairs, and we do those with 25 to 30 people every three months or so, which is when maybe 4 people get any of the lairs. Almost everyone in our raid has either none of the two or a single one at best.”

“Save for Mr Habborlain.”

“Save for him. So he went to see all of his own, of course, got behind the door, and found a Gate in the Keep’s courtyard.”

“And a trunk zone.”

“Zabarkal.”

“Another -kal zone,” Jonas noted.

“Once is happenstance, twice coincidence, four zones is seriously significant.”

“So you believe us.”

“I was still hesitating to do this, my boss be damned. I couldn’t see why you’d lie, but then something as monumental as an extra zone like this should have been found out. But independent confirmation helps me feel better about it.”

Jonas nearly startled. But then, extraordinary claims required evidence to back them. Your reputation only got you so far.

“So, you’ve done two lairs already then?”

“Yes. We were heading to the Plaza, to leave a message there, and then check the wolf lair, since it’s supposed to be so close, you can even see the Plaza from its entrance.”

“We came back once we got that note at the Frozen Boar. It took only two days to arrive.”

“And the door opens normally? I saw you come out of the lair, so I assume you used that Gate to come.”

“We did. Do you want to check if we can open it for you?”

“Why not. It might save us a lot of time.”

“Door still doesn’t move,” confirmed Waldo Aubert. The man was the one with the highest Strength in the Scouts’ team, but Jonas assumed that no Potential amount would help. It was like with Gates – you could either cross or not. Nothing else mattered but the completion.

“It just clicks open when we go near.”

Cowen and the rest of her team looked at each other. Then they filed away from the room.

“Yell when it opens,” she said.

The team waited next to the door, waiting. The loud clicking indicated the unlocking of the door.

“OPEN!” Ira yelled from the entrance into the room.

Ten seconds later, the door slammed abruptly with a massive sound, reverberating across the entire room.

Cowen’s team entered, looking at the door forlornly.

“It is a door, not a gate,” Habborlain pronounced.

Cowen sighed, “Heard that from the corridor. Well, I had to try. You really need everyone within range to be validated for it. Can't cheat your way in.”

She looked at the innocuous-looking door set in the wall before adding, “I would suggest not to be within the frame when you’re not sure who is around. It might be… painful if it closes on you.”

Jonas swallowed, his imagination filling vividly the scenario.

“Can you survive being cut in half?”

“Not strictly survive. But if you put enough pieces back together, you get the descriptor for the resurrection again. The clock still ticks even if it’s not visible there, though.”

“Ah. Well, sorry we can’t help.”

“Don’t be. Without you being able to run an entire zone – and the right one, presumably – we would probably never have known. It might be frustrating, but it’s also a new thing.”

She shrugged.

“Well, back to plan A, I guess.”

“We have lairs to run, and you know the shortest paths. Where to?” Cowen asked as they moved back out of the ruins.

“The Plaza and the wolf lair next door are the closest, as you guessed. Then from there… the next closest is the cave of the dancing bear, then the ruins of the boars… then we cross the pass with the crows, which is where things go bad, I think.”

“The rare guardian pack.”

“The rare appearance of crows, yes.”

“We shall see,” she answered.

The mountain pass was as they remembered well. A few trees, in which the crows would come to rest, and the chest to the side.

“I see that chest, but no crows in view,” Cowen said.

“No. We saw them, what, twice?” Jonas turned to check with the rest of the team.

“Yes. Twice. We came through quite often, but they’re never there.”

“That’s rare lairs for you. Well, it’s not that they’re rare per se. But the guardian only stays around a few days, then departs, and you have to wait double the usual regeneration time for a lair.”

“How long do you think this is?” Jonas asked.

“Regeneration times go up as you go in tiers. So, a tier two rare is probably under two weeks. Probably. Maybe between two and three weeks. There’s not enough at the Archives to make a guess, I think.”

She turned to Sims quizzically.

“Does your underpowered zone also have underpowered regeneration?”

“No, the normal lairs regenerate all under a week.”

“Now, that does fill me with hope,” she replied half-sarcastically.

“There’s still a last normal lair, the lowest level of the zone. A small lake with ice frogs,” Jonas said helpfully.

“Is it far away? While a rare does not stay around for long, we might have time to do it before it leaves.”

“No. Half a day walk down the pass, a bit more.”

“Good enough. Lead the way, Sims,” she replied.

“And that’s it,” Cowen said prodding the Froglord. “Now, we just have your crows to find. Could be any time between when we get back to the pass into the next week.”

Laura laughed as she opened the chest. Both Jonas and Cowen turned to look at the Calculating Grinder with surprise.

“What?”

“No, it’s just that I traded for a new glove pair at the faire, and look what I get now,” she said.

Blue-Hide Grips

Hands

Quality equipment

Requires: Level 29

Provides: +7 defence rating, +49 endurance, +44 mind

“It’s exactly one endurance more than what I have now. Better-looking as well.”

“What’s this faire you’re talking about,” Cowen asked.

“A trade meet another Professional started,” Jonas explained. “We meet every week or so, bring everything we got, no matter what, and swap. Since brokers pay the same rate for unused gear…”

“You trade one for one and at least someone’s happy,” Cowen completed. “Smart move.”

“The scouts probably don’t need to do that,” Jonas said.

“No. We’ve got something close to fifteen teams, all in tier five and sometimes six zones. We’ve got a good quartermaster, but getting useful gear is rare. I have exclusively heroic and some artefacts, and we got those ourselves, for the most part.”

“Got my set from the quartermaster,” Waldo Aubert corrected.

“That’s because you love the look from south Bespina, rather than what we get usually,” Cowen replied.

“Anything we can do?” Jonas asked as they jumped from the last ice floe to the shore.

“In this, we’re at the mercy of the Labyrinth. Can’t hurry anything,” she replied. “We’ll go there and sit on our asses until they deign coming.”

She added, “And you? Did you do any exploration in there since we last spoke?”

“No. We focused on getting more levels and better gear. Being able to run every lair we want when we want is a lot of help.”

“It was that way when I started. For about three months. Then suddenly everyone was running the Labyrinth and it was more about figuring out which lair was empty and which wasn’t. So, what are you going to do while we camp out in the pass?”

“Go in finally, I think. Try to see what kind of bovine guardians there are.”

“Try not to kill too many of them. We need three if we want to go to all zones from there.”

“No problem, we won’t,” said Jonas.

“Well, we might kill one,” Ira added.

Jonas looked at his friend, surprised.

“Uh?”

“If we get one lair completion, then we can at least use the Gate to the tier one trunk zone. And check what it looks like for you. That way, you don’t need to waste time on an even lower tier.”

“Hey. Not a bad idea.”

“Thanks.”

After Cowen’s team started to walk away toward the mountain pass and the seventh lair, Jonas contemplated Ira’s plan.

“Really?”

“Why not? If the zone is as small as the other, it’s quickly done. And we will be the ones doing the first map,” he added.

“You really want to impress the British Scouts? At 100?”

“It’s never too early to make a good impression. The Morvells’ always said so when I was working for them.”

“Lair is still empty,” Ira said once they reached the lowest room of the ruined plaza.

“And the chest is empty this time,” Jonathan announced.

“I left the basic item inside?” Laura asked, moving to the chest. Prodding it failed to get it open.

“Its content will probably be replaced once the guardians arrive. The chest at the pass was registering empty as well,” Jonathan speculated.

“Anyway, time to get some cow steaks,” Ira announced moving to the door.

“We didn’t get that many last time. And they gave normal meat, nothing special,” Guss replied.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Ira replied.

The contrast between the fading light of evening in Othary and the eternal noon of Donerkal still got to Jonas. Well, they all had Recall charged, so if they needed to head back to Gatepost, they could.

“Let’s find a guardian for Ira,” he said.

“Hopefully, not one that calls an entire herd on us,” Laura replied. “I swear I can still feel the imprint of their hooves on my back.”

“Worst case, we kill every bovine within a mile of the guardian before we attack,” Jonas said.

“Let’s hope his call does not cover the entire zone,” she replied.

Thunder Bovine

Level 100 elder

Health: 4629

Mind: 1605

Endurance: 4286

Aether: 2457

“That’s a different one,” Guss noted.

“Different attack then.”

“Let me guess… he uses lightning?” Ira said, half-joking.

“The names are descriptive, but not always. Besides, it’s an Elder. It will have multiple attacks,” Jonas corrected.

“A ton of health as well,” Alton added.

“Strategy?” Ira asked.

“We start by killing every bovine around to be sure. Then you tackle this one,” Jonas replied.

Thunder Bovine calls upon the storm. +1 lightning damage per attack, cumulative.

“Okay. That’s a new one,” Ira said when the notification appeared.

“Cumulative means its damage is going to increase as time passes,” Guss replied.

Thunder Bovine horns sweep. 96(101-5) lightning damage (317+16+32 defence). Damage increases by +1.

“Be careful,” he called out to the approaching melee combatants. “That attack looks to be hitting wide,” he added.

Ira’s sword started to rake across the bovine, minuscule sparks jumping out of the fur as red furrows traced across the Elder’s fur. Jonathan and Laura placed themselves next to the thunder creature, while Alton moved behind.

Jonas noted that the bovine didn’t try to avoid being cornered. Sometimes, creatures didn’t like too many fighters surrounding them, but not in this case. In a way, that simplified his own spellcasting, as the creature didn’t try to avoid the ongoing Fire Funnel.

Thunder Bovine sparks, 48(53-3) retaliation lightning damage (165+16 defence). Damage increases by +1.

“Bollocks!” Laura yelled as the sparks jumped from the furry bovine’s sides into the hammers.

“Not dangerous,” Guss replied, before adding, “at least not yet. If it increases every time there’s an attack…”

Thunder Bovine sparks, out of range.

Jonas nearly jumped back in surprise, but the lightning from the creature grounded itself four feet from him. He moved back a few paces to make sure he kept his distance and resumed Flame Bolts.

“Worst case, if Guss gets low on aether, you move out and I can keep attacking.”

“That retaliation isn’t often enough,” the Assistant replied. “Should be fine.”

“Let’s keep the options open,” Jonas insisted.

Thunder Bovine sparks, 74(76-2) retaliation lightning damage (85+16 defence). Damage increases by +1.

Thunder Bovine: 5383XP/6 contributors = 850XP

You have completed Donerkal Thunder Bovine Lair.

“Of course, it shocks me as it dies,” Alton said jokingly.

“But we’ve got our validation!” Ira replied.

"Barely in time," Guss grumbled. "I now understand why those guys at the faire are always talking about that high-tier equipment with regeneration."

Spotted-Leather Cap

Head

Exceptional equipment

Requires: Level 86

Provides: +34 defence rating, AGI+11, WIS+7, +98 health

“And some nice gear,” Laura said, kicking open the chest a few yards behind the bovine corpse.

“Looks terrible,” Guss noted after receiving the cap.

“Looks like it’s made from a spotted cow skin, which makes sense,” she replied. “It might not be intended for an Assistant, but it is useful. Now, put it on.”

“And get one more Wisdom,” he replied.

“Fine. Whatever.”

The Gate descriptor no longer sported a lair warning when they reached the cube-covered metal loop, as expected.

Transit: Donerkal - Szinkal

Integrity: 100%

Active

Stability: 100%

“Ready for a new, never-ever seen zone?” Ira called before rushing in the gate light.