Chapter 17

Invasion of Tal

Aliah’s part (lvl 73 DS u)

Oh noes, this isn’t good, this is bad, this is SOOOO BAD. I start calling Karillia with the personal transmitter. “Karillia, no time to explain much! Tal empire has stricken the eastern part of the Lirian markets. Info is from the Nora, 100% viable.” I hang up the phone as soon as I said this. Then, I announced “I gotta help my country, who’s coming with me?” Just as I expected, nobody is volunteering immediately. Virtually nobody would help a country against the invasion of the Tal empire. That is something very dangerous and it would require an inhumane amount of courage. It’s not something that can be done with just sympathy or empathy. “I’m in” Nora shouted. “I saw random people die by those armies. Not to a combat, but to a fireball aimed at the mass. I can’t let them die like that.” Morilus was next to speak, “Well, my master is going, I don’t have a choice.” After this, there was a short pause as Quasar and Ace were looking at each other. “Guess we are going to be in the legend this time,” said Ace. “Well, it’s not like we are going to let you go there alone, Nora” murmured Quasar. I said to all of them, “Thanks rogues, I don’t know how I would repay the favor.” “Well, after all this is over, make sure to slide me tons of silver.” “Alright Ace, I will do everything I can in my power.”

Raven’s part (lvl 169 Sigil Knight u)

Karillia said that Aliah said that Nora said that there was an invasion from the Tal empire at the east of the eastern lirian market. Which means it’s my time to go. Sadly my brother is at the Runaenia right now and I know he wants to intervene with our conflicts no more. So I didn't call him, instead I called the head commander of Lolrena. Which happened to be the leader of the Icetail. Lady Jade Icetail. “Hi Jade, you heard?” “Yes, am on it Raven.” “Thanks always, enjoy my eternal love Jade.” “No thanks'' Well that’s Jade for you, or for me, I guess. Anyways I know house Icetail and other Volunteers in Lolrena won’t be enough to stop them. House Lolrena has to get there as fast as we can. I turned on the house ring, an electronics ring that enables me to do many things in the house. I sent a group message in the house chat. “Every housemate who is willing to fight the Tal empire, please come to the Main hall in 3 minutes. It’s okay to meet us at the battlefields if you can’t come to the hall in 3 minutes for some reason. However, if you decide to do so, have your house badge on your armor to be recognized as our house. As soon as I announced this in the chat, the comments section exploded. Sadly, I don’t have time to read all the comments, so I close my house and start preparing.

All I need to prepare is my helmet, since I wear my armor around, and I have my trusty sword at my hilt at all times. My sword used to be mythril sword, but when I defeated the Dakr, it suddenly became a ‘Raven’s sword’. With it came some buffs that I wanted. Buffs were all the things I wanted, but not to the amount I wanted. For example, I wanted something like healing all the damage I countered, instead it had ‘heal the user for 10% of the damage they countered’. You probably got the point. Other than this, it had +250 physical damage, +100 ability damage, +65 ability haste, +30 physical defence, x1.5 damage against chaotic, x2 damage against house Tal and finally, deal extra 30% of the damage the user countered in the form of true damage. Now, true damage was the kind of damage that couldn’t be reduced no matter what. You can see that from the name ‘true’ damage. Making this kind of damage most lethal, and very effective against people with high defence points, mainly tankers. My armor is elite sigils armor, which has x1.5 hp, +150hp, +50 physical defence, +50 magical defence and x1.33 health regen. My helmet is a sigil helmet, which has x1.35 hp. I have other perk items too, which at the end nears my hp to 11000. Normal people usually have hp of 50 to 300. Not only that, my physical defence stat is nearly 1000. Which is about 83% of the physical damage reduction. Magical defence stat is about 800. Which is about 81% of the magical damage reduction. Defence point has an odd system, which as you have more, it gets less effective. Still, having 80% of the damage reduced means you will get only half of the damage compared to when you have 60% of it reduced, so I think it’s still worth getting more. Ooof, already 3 minute is up!

After I realize that 3 minute have passed, I look around the main hall. About 80 people are gathered there. Mmm… this is probably going to be tough. “Alright, let’s go.” As soon as I said this, we started running to the battlefield.

Nora’s part (lvl 60 assassin s)

As we got closer to the battle, the smell of death was hanging in the air. Luckily it seemed that most of the people have escaped unharmed or with a little injury. However there were some people with severe injury or without life. The place was simply a mess. Thankfully, there were many people who were fighting against the Tal empire. “Aw, house Icetail and house Silverwing” exclaimed Aliah. “Are they strong?” I asked. “Well, they are each ranked 1st and 5th in the Lolrena” she answered. “I guess house Lolrena is 2nd, then what’s 3rd?” Ace asked back. “It’s house Firetail, I don’t think they will help Raven this time, because Lolrena and Icetail has been too close since the first resistance war,” snorted Aliah. Understandable, their name itself portrays the rivary against the house Icetail. To some houses, those things are more important than the country they base in. “Ooo, I see some rogue formed resistances too. You can fight alongside them if you want, or you can fight alongside us house Dragonia.” “We will do the latter.” I answered flatly. I wasn’t in the mood to chat, I was going to crush those murderers.

“Aliah, you're here, thank god. House Firetail is going to counterstrike the Tal empire for the loots.” “Oh so they are actually helping us?” exclaimed Aliah. “Oh, your Karillia. I’m Nora, nice to meet you. I heard from Raven that you were hiding in the closet when we visited the house Dragonia because you hated meeting strangers.” “That is false, I was out in mission.” “Karillia admit it, you hate talking to strangers.” “Alright Aliah, fine, I was actually hiding in closet.” I cut to the chase, “What are you people doing here, why aren’t you attacking?” “If we try to move in a large group, they will use large area magic, and if we try to move seperate, they will use multi-targetting magic or just kill us seperately.” he replied with a sigh. “Alright then, I’m going in. I am good enough assassin to dodge those.” Morilus intervened, “No, Nora, your merely a superclass.” “That’s why you’re going to come with me.” “Whatever you say kiddo, it’s you who’s going to die not me, if things go terribly wrong that is.” “I know the risk, Ace can you observe?” “There are so many people here, I can’t use observe on a person in the enemy base. I can only use ‘set target observe’ and set the view on you.” “Well, that’s not going to be much help then.” I murmured. “Here, put this in your ears, I will be observing your backside and tell you of any projectiles aimed at you.” “Alright, let’s do this!” I shouted as I readied my dagger into a fighting poze. Morilus went in my dagger and I headed to the enemy base.

Soon I get close enough to get detected by their watchers. “Buffed agility”, “Buffed stealth”, “Asilent”. With these I manage to get in 500 meters of their base without getting noticed. I head for the bush as the buffed stealth was about to end, but THERE WAS AN ENEMY HIDING AT THE BUSH. “Assassinate”, “Triple dagger throw”, “Dagger reap”, “Bane”, “Dagger parry strike”, Dagger throw”, “Silent strike” … “Lethality” I used almost all of my skills at once, which killed the enemy. Thanks to Asilent, the sound was muted. Only bad thing is that now most of my skills are on cooltime, and I gotta wait out couple minutes for many of my skills to come back. Thank god I don’t use mana nor chi, or I would have to wait at least couple hours or even couple days. In the bush, I wait in silent. I doubt they realized I have entered their front yard. A minute passed, even though most of my strong skills are at cooldown, my buffed stealth is back and I start running to the next bush. 300 meters away now. I gotta find a way to get in without getting caught. Buffed stealth probably won’t work because even if it can’t be seen from the distance, seen up close, it’s clear that somebody is using some hiding skills at that place. They would simply throw tons of non targetting skills or spells and I would be dead in a matter of seconds. Yes! I got it, all assassin’s friend, it’s time to use em. Not now though. When my skills come back. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. NOW! I throw my smoke grenade, 5 meters right to the bush. I wait as they bombard the smoke with endless amounts of attacks. Soon, they will realize I faked it. I throw another smoke grenade farther from the three, close to the base. This time they realize I am not there. I know it is my only chance. As they turn their focus on to the bush, and to the left side of the bush, I use buffed agility and buffed stealth to go inside the smoke. “Ace, can you hear me?” “Yes?” “I'm going to use Lightless, please tell me where to go.” Lightless is a skill that makes me totally invisible up to a minute. It has a cooltime of 2 hours and usage time of 10 min maximum. However, it’s very hard to make a good use out of it because I can’t see anything. Which is why Ace is going to help me out here. “Nora, jump in the wall, nobody is noticing you.” I did do just that. “Mmm… okay, there are people all around you, stick as close to the wall as possible and hold. Your left is clearned, slowly move while feeling the wall with your hand.” I honestly hate following other’s orders, but guess what I hate more? Dying, ugh! “Okay, stop”, I stopped moving. “There are so many people and I can’t explain all that for you to dodge them all, you should try to rob a person’s identity.” “What? You think I should wear their clothes and carry their indentity card?” “Well… any other idea Nora?” “How do I even do that anyways?” “I will guide you to the restroom. Hold until I give you a sign, then jump on the victim and knock or kill them. You can probably do the rest by yourself.” “Alright… here we go…”