“So, this is the last lair,” Ira asked.

“According to the guidebook, that’s the last one found,” Jonas replied, snapping the volume in question shut.

“It’s a bit weird, though? You even can see a Gate from here…”

“It’s for Zunnaemi, and at tier one, it’s bloody useless for us,” Jonas replied.

“Well, I can see that on the descriptor. At least the zone, if not the tier. It’s too bad, though. Maybe there’s trunk access there?”

Transit: Outapis - Zunnaemi

Integrity: 100%

Active

Stability: 100%

“It’s not in the list of the gates we found on tier one. That means there’s more than one trunk. Which is entirely possible,” Jonas admitted.

“But unless we get some more definitive use of it, we can’t really afford to waste time exploring every tier one we come across,” Jonathan added.

“No sense of exploration, all of you,” the Careful Barrier replied, huffing.

Since he’d decided to get them recruited for the British Scouts, Ira had been steadily becoming a bit too flighty for Jonas’ tastes. Anything was an excuse for more exploration. It wasn’t the first time he went straight into some fancy, though, so he hoped this was a phase he’d grow out of. At least, it didn’t distract him from the defensive duties of the team.

The rest of the team ignored the discussion between the two friends, focusing instead of the mounds coming out of the dry, deserting soil of the zone. The northern part had been all about jackals – purple ones – which Laura still found hideous from the way they clashed with the ochre tones of the desert. The central Badlands ring was flightless birds, with thin, sparse plumage. The southern part was all about snakes, but with legs. Six of them.

But, like most lairs, this one was going in a different way. The team could see holes in the three huge mounds, and hideous-looking ochre larvae loitering around the entrances.

Intermediate Larval Stage

Level 96 veteran

Health: 1496

Mind: 532

Endurance: 905

Aether: 0

The creatures crawled in small bursts, moving a few dozen feet before stopping. There were no definite groups, no obvious packs. Sometimes you had a larva on its own, sometimes they crawled over their neighbour to go wherever.

“And here I thought the worms in that Ovildian lair were bad,” Guss said.

“They’re not harder than anything else,” Jonas replied soberly.

“Normal Labyrinth stuff, then. Good,” the Abiding Assistant said.

“And 96. A bit harder than the last one, but not that much with our new Milestone,” Alton added.

“Speak for yourself,” Laura replied. “I should be getting my level soon, but I’m not entirely sure I’ll get it before the first guardian.”

“Given the number of veterans crawling around, you should be good,” Jonas replied.

Team

Professions

Health

Mind

Jonas Sims

Solid Aethershaper (94)

843/843

969/969

Jonathan Gilbert

Calculating Barrier (106)

2018/2018

877/877

Ira Heard

Careful Barrier (98)

2483/2483

1083/1083

Guss Fullmore

Abiding Assistant (98)

1042/1042

883/883

Laura Harvey

Calculating Grinder (97)

1201/1201

814/814

Alton Raby

Solid Gouger (98)

1034/1034

946/946

The six were slowly drifting apart in terms of levelling these days. When you switched Professions, you started by shooting up in levels, then slowed down. Then, someone else would switch, and catch up, and so on. Right now, Ira was levelling the slowest, having switched first. Both Guss, Alton and Laura were next, with Laura only a bit behind due to having changed at a different Plaza after the two. Jonas was still playing catch-up after his trip to the Colonies, while Jonathan, having switched twice to test Babbage’s theories, was levelling the fastest.

“Any priority?” Alton asked.

“Don’t think so. The guide says the lair structure is spiralling tunnels, with all kind of interconnections between those. Down is toward the final guardian, up toward the surface. So I guess it doesn’t matter which mound we enter, as long as we clear everything before heading down.”

“You can bypass the guardians?”

“If you want to. But if we want lair completion, we’d better get them before going to the final elder, or we’ll miss out. It’s a five chest lair, so we need probably at least three before the last guardian,” Jonas replied.

The team spent half an hour observing the coming and goings around the triplet of mounds.

“Can’t find a pattern to these things. So, I think we should start making room until we can get to an entrance,” Jonas announced.

“Standing ready,” Jonathan replied alongside Ira.

Jonas picked one of the larvae furthest from the rest and threw a single Flame Bolt. He’d had hesitated to replace his old crown with the new one from the last lair before deciding against it.

Fiery Newt-engraved Crown

Head

Exceptional equipment

Requires: Level 65

Provides: +14 defence rating, +1 Flame Bolt rank, INT+7, +83 health

Coppery Snake-eyes Circlet

Head

Exceptional equipment

Requires: Level 84

Provides: +17 defence rating, +1% fire damage, INT+10, FOR+7

Ultimately, he’d decided against it. Flame Bolt remained his bread and butter skill, and thus, despite the higher level, the newer crown didn’t feel right for him. The extra Intellect and general percentage for spells were nice, but he thought he was losing more than he gained. Sometimes the upgrade was obvious, sometimes it wasn’t.

Besides, his health was already the lowest of the team, and 10% less health meant serious risks, even when attacking at a distance. Someone was going to be happy next Faire, very likely.

Unsurprisingly, another larva not far from the one Jonas had targeted noticed the attack and followed its congener. Then another noticed its comrade crawling out, and followed until four larvae scrambled toward the team’s position.

Jonathan and Ira picked the larvae in their order of arrival. The crawling motion was far slower than most critters they usually fought, so separating them was far easier than previous enemies. Then, the team fell in their well-oiled routine, killing each creature in order.

Mound Larvae × 4: 5626XP/6 contributors = 888XP.

“You were right Jonas, this shouldn’t take much time to get my last 5000 XP,” Laura said.

The team had spent nearly two hours advancing slowly in the tunnels. At first, they’d had to fight nearly non-stop, as more larvae arrived and spotted them just as they’d finished the previous ones. But they’d quickly learned to back away for each fight, and they had fewer larvae spotting them.

They nearly missed the first guardian. There was a side tunnel, which, rather than connect to another spiralling main one, connected to a larger pocket containing a different larva.

Late Larval Stage

Level 95 elite

Health: 2580

Mind: 90

Endurance: 156

Aether: 0

“Uh? What is it with the vitals?” Ira started.

“Guide says all guardians are metamorphic. I guess each larva changes into the appropriate guardian. Maybe as soon as its vitals drop to 0?” Jonas mused.

“Anything else about the fights?”

“I’m guessing that cocoon next to it is related.”

“Actually, it’s the chest,” Jonathan replied, having spotted the descriptor.

“Uh? Okay, I guess. Weirdest chest we’ve seen so far,” Laura noted.

After making sure that no other tunnel opened into the guardian’s pocket, the team started with their combat routine, with Ira coming in first, followed by the three melees, while Jonas and Guss took places to the side of the entrance, to avoid any additional critter coming to disrupt the fight from behind.

The larva shrank before the incoming assault, and Jonas noticed that the mind vital was dropping at five per second or so, confirming that it would almost certainly mark the start of the real fight.

“Okay, it’s going to change in three… two… one second…”

Right on schedule, the semi-translucent skin roiled with an inky blue coming from inside, then split, revealing a beetle-like creature with sharp claws and six wicked-looking legs.

Blue Mound Dweller

Level 95 elite

Health: 2398/2580

Mind: 815/905

Endurance: 1560

Aether: 1366

“Original name,” Ira commented, kicking the creature to make sure it stayed focused instead of changing targets after emerging from the previous critter.

Despite the attack, the beetle shook its chitinous head, spraying a blue goo. The thick liquid unerringly targeted the two furthest team members, and both Guss and Jonas flinched as the substance started to affect them.

Blue Spray: -25% to regeneration, -3 mind/sec, -10 DEX, -9 WIS.

While the potentials affected didn’t concern him, the regeneration cut meant he wouldn’t get any serious regeneration until the end of the fight. 25 additional seconds of delay before any form of regeneration began ended many strategies. Once he started spending aether, it was time to go all-in. Guss swore, having made the same calculations.

Meanwhile, the melee were going all-in on the beetle, with Jonathan managing to yell when the creature tried to raise its front legs and bend those forelegs in impossible directions to slice at the fighters.

Laura jerked briefly, causing her teammates to throw interrogative looks at her.

“Sorry, new skill discovered. Don’t worry,” she quickly explained.

Skill unlocked: Underhanded Strike (unranked)

Underhanded Strike

Personal/Offense

Rank 0: Your next weapon strike adds 10% of your AGI to normal damage and bypasses defence. Costs: 0.2 endurance/dmg

She quickly realized that this wasn’t the skill she’d been looking for when switching skill spheres. It was still useful because she’d noticed that the beetle had been avoiding some strikes. But the one she really wanted the Double Strike skill she’d found in the build tomes from the library at the Archives and she still had not managed to achieve.

Hopefully, she’d find an item at the Faire with the skill. It was a tier-two skill, not a tier-one like the Underhanded Strike one, but there should be items with those tier of skills among the traders.

Meanwhile, Alton kept chaining his own Backstabs, gouging the beetle’s chitin. The health of the blue giant insect was dropping steadily, and it did not seem to do much in the way of actions for an elite. Jonas kept throwing a steady stream of spells, Laura, Alton and Jonathan slashed, and the entire fight got quickly anticlimactic.

Blue Mound Dweller: 2853XP/6 contributors = 451XP.

“A bit weird. That beetle didn’t fight hard.”

“Sounds like an easy fight for some treasure. So how do I open this thing?” Laura asked.

“Let me slice it open,” Alton replied.

He brought down his Parrying Dagger, making a careful cut. The “chest” opened itself with a blubbing noise that brought a grimace on Jonas’ face. Laura obviously shared his opinion of the mess as she plunged her hand, fishing for the item. She finally dragged out a handle, then an entire slime-covered blade.

Bronze Broadsword

Two-Handed

Common equipment

Requires: Level 91

Provides: 28 physical damage (+9% STR), +19 AGI

“Pfff. Useless,” Ira commented.

“Could have been another weapon,” Jonathan replied. “All I could tell was that it was a common one at level 91.”

Ira shrugged and tied the broadsword to his backpack. At worst, it would go for good pennies – a heavy item like that sold better for bulk processing into Labyrinth salvage. Then, they climbed out of the guardian pocket and resumed going down and hunting larvae.

“You’re sure this is the last guardian?” Ira asked.

“Chest says it’s an elder-type treasure, even if there are only elites inside,” Jonathan pointed at the rusty-looking container glued to the side of the room.

“Two quality items, though, no exceptional one,” he added immediately.

There were three “late-stage” larvae crawling in the room, all three level 89. That was to be expected, multiple guardians usually got slightly lower level and one rank below to compensate for their large number. The Labyrinth was nothing if not fair in the combat it offered to the Professionals travelling inside.

Late Larval Stage × 3

Level 89 elite

Health: 2395

Mind: 85

Endurance: 144

Aether: 0

“Strategy? I take two, you take one?” Ira asked Jonathan.

“Once they change into beetle forms, we’ll see what comes out, and which one to tackle first,” the second defender replied. Despite having a higher level, he still had lower vitals from his Profession mix, even after accounting for Ira’s Artefact weapon massive boost.

“Let’s go,” Jonas called.

The beetles that emerged from the wreckage of the larval forms ten seconds later were blue, red and orange. They’d fought the blue and red versions already, but the orange one wasn’t one they’d found in the mound tunnels.

The three beetles simultaneously shook they maws, spraying their respective goo. Blue targeted the furthest away of the team, like before, red anyone near melee except for Ira, and orange only Jonathan. Due to the weird mixes, the Calculating Barrier ended up with two different goo splashes.

Spray × 2: -50% to regeneration, -3 mind&endurance/sec, -9 DEX/AGI/PRE/FOC.

Jonathan made a half-grimace. The cumulative effect wasn’t that horrible for him personally, although he could probably have done away with the Focus reduction. That wasn’t the first time he’d been splashed in the lair, after all.

“Okay, let’s focus on Ira’s red? If it’s like the last, it will throw poisons as well,” Jonas called out.

Red Mound Dweller breathes a poison cloud: -9 health/sec

“Cloud, not targeted spit! That’s changed!” Laura called.

Guss threw a quick set of healing, but his low-intensity spell, the regeneration boost, was entirely useless in those circumstances – with their regeneration curtailed, Increase Healing had no effect. If Guss had rank 4 of the skill, it could have been used on the team. But at 2, it was entirely worthless in this fight, given that everyone except Ira had -25%.

Increase Healing

Aether/Support

Rank 2: Increase health regeneration by 20% for 70 seconds. Costs 0.48 Aether/level of the target.

Blue Mound Dweller trashes: 118 damage × 3 targets (mitigated by 12 to 55).

Red Mound Dweller trashes: 118 damage × 3 targets (mitigated by 12 to 55).

Jonas made a snap decision. From the look of it… the beetle had enough endurance to keep launching those kinds of attacks. And Guss couldn’t sustain healing on all melee against multiple attacks of that kind.

“Laura, Alton? Move to Jonathan’s. If the beetles all start doing attacks like that, Guss will never make it.”

“Uh?” Alton grunted.

But both melee fighters immediately backed and turned and ran toward the orange beetle. Once in place, they resumed their assault, and the orange version started to lose health faster.

“On Ira,” Guss called to indicate his main focus.

The rest of the team took note and focused. If their health dipped too low… well, hopefully, their healer would remember their poisonous cloud before it ended them.

Backstab does 83 (29+54) damage to Orange Mound Dweller: Target dies

Jonathan immediately turned around, picked the lowest health beetle from the pack of two who were trying to fend Ira’s claymore, and rushed on it, dropping his two swords on the rear of the beetle. Not that it did much difference in effect, but it would probably irritate the creature.

He threw a look at Ira’s descriptor. The limited version available from the team’s general descriptor didn’t go into deep details, but the summary was… not good.

Ira Irwin Heard

Health: 594/2483 (2061)

Mind: 765/1083

Endurance: 233/918 (704)

Aether: 652/652 (554)

Defence Rating: 528+22

25% faster levelling

Blue Spray (-25% regen/-3mind/-9STA&STR)

Blue Stink (-6% physical damage)

Red Spray (-25% regen/-3health/-9AGI&PRE)

Red Poison (-9 health/sec)

5% health/CON

17% armour

1 mind/FOC

1% defensive economy

Interpose ended up doing some good. Catching a trashing from the red beetle reduced the damage suffered by his teammate, but more importantly, it ended up with him being noticed by the critter. Once the pressure was reduced on Ira, that would be good.

Jonathan might not have the same armour as the main defender of the team, but at the moment, he had nearly 900 health left and could endure some attacks.

Once the beetle faced him, he retreated, making sure the dumb insect followed. Once he was far enough, both Laura and Alton joined him from habit. Jonas didn’t call out a target change, so that was obviously good enough. Besides, Jonathan could see brief flames coming from behind him and impacting the red chitin, telling him that his beetle was the favoured target.

The fight went on. After each fight, Jonathan was surprised that so little time actually went on. A fight that seemed to stretch for half an hour had been over in a couple of minutes. He had sneaked a few talks with some guards at the Great Gate while coming and going, and a few of the guards had been veterans of the continental fights. They all said the same thing – time in combat was never the same as time in ordinary activity.

He felt better than any other time. Changing to a defender role had been his best decision – suggestions to the contrary from some older Professional be damned. Facing enemies in the face was good, bringing him in a timeless space where Cross and Anticipate were bare flashes.

Facing a beetle in combat meant he didn’t have to face the world.

The only way this could have been better if the beetle had sported the tricolour. Not just red, but blue and white stripes.

Mound Dweller × 3: 7915XP/6 contributors = 1250XP.

You have completed Outapis Large Mounds lair.

“Hey! Got level 99!” Ira exclaimed.

“Couldn’t stay at 98 with us?” Guss asked, half-joking.

“Bah, you’ll catch up with me again soon,” the defender replied.

Laura tore at the larval spit covering the chest’s latch before fishing out the two items inside.

Tri-colour Globe

Off-hand

Quality equipment

Requires: Level 87

Provides: +8 defence rating, +122 aether, +101 health

Softened Cover

Head

Quality equipment

Requires: Level 88

Provides: +25 defence rating, STR+9, +119 mind

“Hey. Not too shabby,” she said.

The pearlescent leather cap vanished from her hand to reappear immediately on her head, having transited across her Puppet container. She then threw the blue-red-orange globe toward Jonas, who caught it.

Given how rarely he used the Lightblast, he might as well replace the off-hand tome with some basic vitals. The damage might have been comparable to Flame Bolt if he had more ranks, but at rank 4 for the former with elemental bonuses and only 1 for the latter with no additional percentage, he never used the lightning-based spell. If they were to face some critter that had some serious resistance to fire, maybe it would see use.

The tome would join up the rest of the items in the bank. If any of the others were to pick Aether-Offense as skill sphere, they’d use it to unlock the skill immediately without waiting for the right circumstances.

Although this run through Outapis had been good in that regard, Jonas had to admit to himself.

“So, we completed every lair,” Ira said.

“Every one that was spotted. Too bad there’s no way of knowing if it is all of them,” Jonas replied.

“We need to check them again, to see if something opens up.”

“We’ll do it. Then maybe Ticoughon? Or unlock the Gates of the trunk zone? It’s smaller, though, and there’s probably a lot less chests to plunder since it’s a single guardian each time,” Jonas said.

“That too. Although if it’s all 100+, there should be better upgrades to be found,” Laura noted.

“I wonder what Cowen’s team found in the trunk. More shortcuts?”

Guss Bernhard Fullmore

Health: 1042/1042 (862)

Mind: 883/883 (776)

Endurance: 552/552

Aether: 1429/1429 (1293)

Effective level: 98

Level 26 Abiding Assistant

Level 42 Hospitaler

Level 30 Mender

Experience: 29926/62400

Strength: 40

Dexterity: 34

Agility: 40 (29)

Constitution: 38

Stamina: 36

Wisdom: 125 (67)

Focus: 47 (40)

Presence: 34

Fortitude: 46 (41)

Intellect: 34

Defence Rating: 67

25% faster levelling

1% regeneration

15% additional healing

1 aether/WIS

Milestones: Adjustment V, Mender II, Hospitaler III, Abiding Assistant II

Skills: Minor Heal Wounds (3), Increase Healing (2), Patch Wounds (2), Cleanse Poison (0), Cleanse Disease (0), Mitigate Disease (0), Clear Fatigue (0)

Equipment: Spotted Leather Cap (11AGI/7WIS/98hp), Dirty Burlap Robe (8WIS/5FOR), Brown Burlap Gloves (7WIS/1%regen), Braided Burlap Belt (1WIS/14aet), Black Burlap Leggings, (9WIS/107mind), Faded Burlap Sandals (11WIS), Ancient Desert Hammer (7FOC/6WIS/82hp), Bronze Censer (9WIS/122aet)