Chapter 006: The Dreadful Place

The Hexcaster fell. Taken down by a combination of Dragon's Flares and Arcane Bolts. Outpacing enemy mana regeneration was the lowest level of tactics to be used against hostile sorcerers. Useful when you had superior numbers, but otherwise - not at all. Thankfully, we had our Dragonbride. Training gave Vaera a lot of mana, and Dragon Flare was pretty cost efficient. Weaker than Arcane Bolt, but still useful.

Leria, in the same time, danced with two Stalkers. We were understaffed in terms of frontline. Leria required at least a single helper. It was a commonsense in DFI's games to have at least one melee combatant per each person attacking from behind. We now had two sorcerers and one melee fighter which... kinda hurt.

I used Vulnerability Curse on one of the Stalkers. Vaera cast Dragon Might on Leria, imbuing her with greater strength. The tides of battle turned as our human shield concentrated on the weakened opponent. As we discovered earlier Blessing of Nyrathzm allowed a single spell to be broken, meaning that casting Vulnerability Curse before taking down the Hexcaster was a bad idea.

Because of that our fights were made according to a simple plan. Leria kept the melee fighting Stalkers busy. Me and Vaera took down Bolt Throwers and Hexcasters. Such an order was because Bolt Throwers lacked magic shields. They were much easier to eliminate. After both type of ranged combatants were out of the game, we moved over to help her finish the Stalkers. Easy peasy.

Hexcasters and Bolt Throwers were more frequent after we headed deeper into the forest. Also, magical anomalies had a... proportional reaction to intruders. The more people and the stronger they were, the more power they drew to their surroundings. The more power they drew, the more... intensive an anomaly became. Where three people could walk, forty people would get massacred.

By now we were so deep into the Black Woods that it was night all day long. We improvised a torch and had Vaera carry it, since he walked around empty-handed. Taking down enemy ‘patrols’ wasn’t that hard. To be honest we would probably have our asses handed to us if we ever ran into two Hexcasters at once, but as long as there was only a single one… it was ok.

We still did not know how 'deep' the Black Woods were. From the stone perch where the Tyrant's Hold was we could see it was around ten kilometres wide. If our estimates were right, we had already gone about fifteen kilometres deep. From what I know about anomalies, the center of it could as well be 20 kilometres ahead of us. With so much magic in the air the space itself got weird.

We all reached fifth level. Vaera was close to level six. We spent three days here already. I was reaching the level when I thought that we had a chance of returning alive from the trip to the town. Perhaps even unmolested. For now... we were making a deep raid into the Woods. The outside wasn't hard enough anymore and getting some interesting stuff to sell would be a good idea.

"Alright then." I spoke, after the last Stalker fell. "I guess it's the time to set up a camp." Leria once again seemed beaten up. No deep wounds, she was already too good for that. But there were a lot of scratches and bruises where Aura Armour stopped potentially killing blows.

Go into the wilds, kill and loot stuff until you can no longer fight, make camp and rest. Vaera joining the team sped up said process as he knew a blessing ritual called Dragon's Protection. When used on a campfire it surrounded it with an aura that makes most average enemies go away. Supposedly it makes them feel like there was a real dragon near the campsite. Neat, if you ask me.

A part of me wonders if this game is just helping me get as strong as possible. I get better fast. On the other hand - I didn't even see any player other than me, so... I'm probably lagging behind. Sigh. And I still wonder when the game will fire up the anti-grind mechanism.

We sat around the campfire and decided the order of guard duty. Not like we expected anyone to intrude, but somebody had to make sure the fire was still going. The blessing would be undone if it did.

In the end Vaera was to be the first one, then me and then Leria. I went to sleep.

***

I was woken by a scream.

I jumped up, still barely conscious, staff in my hands.

What the…

Shrike

Unique

Category: Dark/Thorns

Type: Daemon/Servile

Threat Grade: Iron IX

A hamadryad - tree nymph inhabiting trees, especially old ones - that went insane when the corruption spread throughout the forest. Now it is a hate-driven vessel of Nyrathzm power, stalking the forest to murder outsiders in a most creative and painful ways.

Known spells and hexes:

???

Fuckfuckfuck. It’s a Unique. A boss. Unique background, set of skills… and almost always really fucking strong.

She looked like a quite pretty woman. Curvy, with an almost hourglass figure that despite this still seemed natural. Normal hamadryads wore branches and leaves as their clothing. This one wore similar attire… but it was like the forest surrounding us. Darkened. Twisted. Thorny. Hateful.

Her eyes seemed unnaturally dark. Almost like stains of darkness on her face.

Vaera was retreating, his magic shield ripped into shreds before my eyes. He rose it again right before he was shredded into pieces by the hurricane of thorny bolts unleashed by the Shrike. Seconds later the insane hamadryad fired another hex. It manifested as a wave of thorns exploding from the ground, branches bending into twisted forms and trying to grapple or shred anything in front of her.

The shield was overwhelmed again and broke. Dragon Shield worked different from normal Magic Shield. For some reason (not like magic needed any) it was much more resilient... but only against weaker spells and hexes. It was vulnerable to powerful hits that could overwhelm it in one or two hits. But if Vaera fought me, he would win unless I lifetapped him to death.

The worst possible enemy for him. Despite the shield breaking the attack progressed. The branches almost shredded him. Lots of wounds even if not deep.

The Shrike laughed maniacally. She did it on purpose. To play with us rather than kill us outright. Wonderful, just the boss we wanted to fight as our first ...

I fired Arcane Bolts, but they splashed on her shield. Leria - now awake - jumped forward with the sword. Shrike made a weak gesture... and something emerged from the branches on the ground between her and our warrior.

Blackwood Lignomorph

Category: Dark/Thorns

Type: Beast/Servile

Threat Grade: Iron IV

A corrupted conglomerate of bushes, roots and treebranches that were so packed with magic that they started to think for themselves. Now they are a servants of corrupted hamadryads and other powerful things that stalk the forest, seeking to murder all outsiders.

Known spells and hexes:

???

Oh, so she is also a summoner. We are SO dead.

I rose my magic shield and fired Vulnerability Curse. She must have felt that, because she redirected her attention, showering me with what I presume were Thorn Bolts. This gave Vaera a moment to catch his breath, think and act. Leria got a buff while the lignomorph she faced was hit by a Dragon Fireball.

That must have hurt. He even caught fire for a short while, but his magic suppressed it soon. Dammit. I fired another Vulnerability Curse, this time on the lignomorph.

50% mana down. Thankfully, the mana pool grew with levels. Besides, Blackwood Staff was a lifesaver.

The Shrike cast what I presumed to be a Blessing of Nyrathzm on herself. My debuff disappeared. I wasted a lot of mana. Goddamnit. I fired a few Arcane Bolts on her, but her shield didn't even notice. The same with Dragon Flares Vaera cast on her. Alright, let's go a different way.

I cast Bleeding Hex. It was the first time I got to use it, since it was the first time when I fought a bleeding enemy. Her skin was sliced apart, and she bled. The cut was on her side and it was neither wide nor deep.

On the other hand, it seemed to have pissed her off. The hex holds on to her, so the bleeding remained, draining her mana on regeneration. Huh. This might be a good idea.

Then she fired a spell on me. The same wave of thorns she earlier used to break Vaera's shield. I acted in a not-very-manly way - I turned around, ran, then turned left and hid behind the tree.

The wave moved past me. I fired several more Bleeding Hexes. One seemed to be a critical hit - a slice on her forehead, with the blood clouding her vision. Leria overpowered the lignomorph and launched herself forward.

The Shrike howled. In a supernatural way. I could feel myself shaken. Fear debuff? I resisted it, but before I could continue fighting, two more lignomorphs joined the battle.

Alright, time to face it - we went too deep into an anomaly, believing in the strength of Vaera's protective ritual. While it worked on common enemies, it must have not been enough to scare away a boss creature. Overconfidence, it seems, truly is a slow and insidious killer.

This wasn't a battle we could win.

“WE ARE RETREATING!” I shouted. “SEPARATE AND ESCAPE TO THE HOLD.”

They looked at me, dumbfounded. Then they understood. I turned my back and fled.

I did three steps before Shrike's hex broke my shield, hit my back and pierced through me. I could see a long, thorny projectile protruding from my chest.

Fuck. I guess it's another disgusting resurrection for me.

Then I fell on the ground and stopped feeling anything.

YOU DIED!

Cause of death was Thorn Lance hex that went straight through your heart.

How was it to feel a Shrike’s piercing gaze on you?

You can resurrect now… or take a break and logout.

Resurrect

Logout

The resurrection was equally disgusting as the last one. I was once again reborn naked, with my items seemingly appearing out of nowhere beside the Gore Altar.

Sigh. I guess that the Shrike was just playing with us; she could kill me easily with the Thorn Lance all this time.

This is what you get when you get too cocky in the world where bestiary grading was a logarithmic scale. Iron IX was MUCH more powerful than Hexcaster on Iron IV. It could summon Iron IVs at will. And Iron was only a second grade out of ten.

I had to learn more hexes. The problem was - it required a teacher. Sure, I could get more of them via certain quests, artifacts and spellbooks... but it wasn't a predictable way to improve. I had to assemble a proper build for my character. The solution to this problem was in the local town… and it would be painful.

I was already fully clothed and with my trusty staff in hand when another set of clothing appeared beside me from the thin air. Oh, someone else died?

Then the malformed heap of bodies beside me split. And I could hear a scream. Oh fuck. I know this clothes. Vaera died... and I FUCKING FORGOT TO TELL HIM ABOUT RESURRECTION.

He was naked. It was surprising how pretty and feminine he was... excluding a certain part of him. Smaller than mine, which kinda saved my feeling of manliness.

He kept screaming and fell on the ground. A shock, no doubt. Well, cleaning this mess will take a while.

***

After a few minutes Vaera was pacified. Clothed, he sat with his back on the wall of altar room, drinking wine I brought him from the kitchen. I could still see his hands tremble, but he seemed... okay, not alright, but at least better than he was earlier. It would still be quite a trauma. Drinking to forget wasn't the worst thing he could react with.

Yeah, imagine dying and then being reborn... in there. Without knowing you would be reborn. Damn, the thought makes me tremble on its own.

My train of thoughts was interrupted when another set of clothing appeared from thin air. Oh dear.

The way Leria emerged from this terrifying Altar - naked - was almost erotic. Almost. Like something straight from a weird vore hentai. Wasn't my fetish though. The same for Vaera though he might be too shaken to notice anything. I managed to not look at her… certain part, before she dressed up.

"So... a full party wipe." I sighed, as Leria was gathering her scattered equipment. "I guess we went too deep this time." Leria nodded. Then she looked at Vaera, only to return her gaze to me.

"I... kinda forgot to inform him about resurrection." Her gaze changed into what I associated with the most humiliating moment of my life. "I'm sorry! I know, I failed. Let's give him time to come to terms with it." I will suggest visiting the local town when he manages to overcome his trauma. In the meantime I’ll probably spend a day in the real world. I should probably hurry, since the day that DFI promised something great to happen in their game was coming soon.

***

I was surprised by how close to the Tyrant's Hold the road was. We had to turn right rather than left after leaving it and then walk for twenty minutes. The road was ancient, dating back to the Old Kynevian Empire that occupied the Dragonspine Mountains two thousand years ago.

Roman Empire expy no doubt. Well, at least they built roads according to a similar design. A bit of it was devoured by the overgrown nature, but you could still traverse it.

The trip was also rather short, a few hours at best. Since we left at dawn, it was about noon when we reached our destination.

The town name was Ambryxis. Sounds weird, but on the other hand, outcasts from the entire world inhabited the Dragonspine Mountains, meaning that there wasn't something that could be considered a common language. Nor naming traditions. Ambryxis was a name of a deity worshipped as a guardian spirit of the town.

Probably Doom Magic as a theme. Or at least generally evil. Normal deities weren't a thing in a Doomplace. Unless they came in with armies of their worshippers and servile daemons ready to burn everything to the ground and then piss on the ashes - which was an improvement to such places.

"Remember about one thing, Av." Leria spoke when the gates of the city emerged from the forest in front of us. "People there don't know we were a part of the cult. In fact, they didn't know about it at all." Oh? So even Doomplace-level evil has standards? “The people in the Dragonspine Mountains are more or less fine with Doom Magic and people contacting powers from Beyond. However we are often mistaken with those lunatics worshipping the Pentagram, which is why we still tend to hide. Let's avoid this risk, ok?"

"The Pentagram?" Yeah, gimme this important lore stuff.

"Malice, Discord, Agony and Extinction. Four omnicidal maniacs of the Beyond." Leria rolled her eyes. "They are the source of the bad opinion it has among the common people." Oh, so it's them? And not ritual rapes, human sacrifices and the insanity the Beyond brings?

Yeah, only four gods in the Pentagram. I knew the reason. Or at least theories about it. Wonderfully dreadful. Or dreadfully wonderful. Depending on whom you ask.

"Mhh. I'll try to avoid causing a religious war then." I sighed internally. This will be a pain on every level. "I presume you know the place much better than the rest of us, so you'll be our guide. We need to find at least two new combatants, a heavy warrior and a rogue. Also a teacher for Doom Magic and warrior skills would be useful." I didn't mention about the teacher for Vaera... since I doubted there could be any. One of the problems of rare Old Magics.

Yeah. One mystery solved.

She nodded. Well, it was a good idea to have a proper guide when sightseeing the Doomplace. Otherwise you might have missed all the dreadful details.

***

The gate was rather... sparsely guarded. Two guardsmen in a rather primitive looking armours. That, to be honest, looked like they were scavenged from somewhere. They weren't even checking the passersby; they were there to remind them that there is some authority figure of the city.

There was, of course, a wall. No place without them were inhabited for long. The world out there was deadly. The wall - reinforced by the power of Ambryxis himself - kept deadly things at bay. Without it the town would be around until the first serious attack of local fauna. There were things in the wild that made the Shrike look like a puppy.

We passed through the guard... and discovered the slums. Yeah, no wonder the gate was sparsely guarded.

All Doomplaces had slums. An unfortunate side effect of general depravation of the place. The above-ground sewers to which all the shit ran down. Shantytowns full of junkies that lost against drug addiction. Beggars that lost their lives to gambling. Low grade slaves that had no 'potential' to be useful in ways other than being fucked by degenerates all day long, for as much money as one needed to buy cheap ale. Where murderous maniacs were a plague - though most of them were in fact from better districts, coming here to indulge in their bloodlust on people no one would search for or miss. And don't even have me started on real plagues since when they happened locals were dropping like flies.

Just as degenerated as the rest of the town, but without the hedonistic aesthetics that made the more cultured areas more sufferable... and much more dreadful.

"And you people say mountain elves are primitives." Vaera snarled. "No self-respecting mountain elf would live in such a cesspool."

Yeah, instead they would be busy raiding everyone unfortunate enough to live in their neighbourhood, pillaging everything and capturing slaves to be used by your warriors for pleasure and, sometimes, breeding purposes. Sigh. I miss the times where I could take part in murdering people similar to those surrounding me.

"What next?" I said to Leria, ignoring the elf. Let's not start a shitstorm when it isn't needed.

"We should go north. To the citizen district." She responded. "There is nothing of use to us in the slums. We only took sacrifices from them."

Yeah, one mystery solved. The origin of people murdered and/or raped by the cult.

***

The citizen district looked much better than slums. It was the economic heart of the city. Here was where dozens of workshops were… most of them populated by slaves belonging to the wealthy inhabitants. But there were also a lot of middle strata of the city living there. Free citizens. Craftsmen that were good enough in their professions and produced the small amount of high grade stuff rather than mass production. Adventurers. Smaller size businessman that owned a single or two 'businesses'.

The general deprivation was more subtle here. Ever present slaves were one thing - many kingdoms on the 'Light Side' had them, but also had various laws installed to protect them from abuse, since they were considered people, just of a certain social position. Here it was different. The generally lower level of inhibition was another thing. It was visible in clothing. Not the boob armour level - designers were too much into realism to put them in game - but the average daily clothing here had a lot of cuts. Some people I could see barely wore anything. Which was considered normal around here, at least when it was warm enough to do it.

Then we walked in front of a temple dedicated to Deviation, a goddess of lust and sexual perversions. A glorified bordello, especially in the Doomplace. Those outside it were much more tame - those legal sometimes seemed more like primitive sexologists dedicated to helping married couples explore their sexuality and deepen their relations on that level. Here? Sigh. The female elf standing in front like a humanoid advertisement wore little clothing. And most of it was almost transparent lace. At least the priestesses were there of their own volition, which set it above Doomplace average.

There were also a lot of gambling dens, places where you could buy narcotics, many brothels (staffed by sufficiently... broken and trained slaves), shops with various... marital aids and very sparse clothing, both very advanced for a medieval country. At best one building per ten had such theme, you can't run your economy only on sex, drugs and gambling. Though Doomplaces were close to trying that.

Yeah. No wonder the last one got swarmed by armies of rather zealous opponents of the local way of life. And don’t even get me started on slave trade.

All the horrible things that surrounded me made me think. Mostly about the end of a Doomplace. I wasn't sure how big the Dragonspine Mountains were and how strong the kingdoms surrounding them. It might take a few months (real life) for them to get their players to band up, at least guessing from the way the Glorastia Empire on last DFI game fell. The dark side had a significant advantage in terms of ruthlessness and powerful individuals, which rendered early raids a terrible idea.

This kept being less and less troublesome as world's average levels were getting close to its limit. Soon first raids against outlying cities were successful, drawing more people interested in pillage for a good cause. After this became a trend, gods took lead.

Gods in DFI games were real. They were semi-omnipotent (in the game world) computer programs that played ten thousand multidimensional chess games against each other simultaneously. They had to be restrained by other programs and had limits to their abilities because unlike regular AIs, their thinking had no limits. They weren't made to be beatable because of mistakes or just by being outsmarted by players. They were made to make no mistakes. Their constant influence was the main reason for the success of DFI's last game. It was unpredictable since the gods kept playing their permanent wargame using players - or even entire guilds and kingdoms - as pawns.

After they noticed the trend of attacks against Glorastia, all the decent Gods took advantage, whipping their religious organizations into a zealous frenzy. This changed the weak and disorganized raids into well organized and careful maneuvers with a much stronger punch behind it. Not to mention that the number of quests issued to players anti-glorastian in theme grew. After some time the players took notice of it and organised themselves into an anti-glorastian alliance named simply as Seventh December Treaty.

It was a fun time. I was too far away to take part in the opening skirmishes, but I took part in the main campaign that broke the Glorastian spine. The main cause of its fall was still betrayal - some high ranked Fallen (as the players supporting Glorastia were named) sold the Empire to the decemberists. I wanted to believe in it being the story of redemption, but I could only guess. The coalition never announced details.

Eh. Dreams.

We sold our 'treasures' to what looked like a pawn shop. According to Leria the cult dealt with the owner earlier and he could be trusted... as long as he wasn't aware that the cult perished and its power did so as well. We sold short swords used by cult's guards, jewellery and Blackwood staffs - for nine hundred and sixty-seven ambries. The local currency, being small strips of gold or silver. With numbers written on them, to signify how many 'units' of ambrys they were worth. The bigger the worth the more gold/silver was in the alloy they were made from.

We also visited a herbalist and sold most of the surplus ingredients I had gathered. For another three hundred twenty ambries. So… one thousand two hundred and eighty-seven ambries total.

Alright, now it's time to start buying stuff.