The Dragon's Revenge Read online

  Hurray. This level, which should have been a horrific challenge (maybe some kind of magic wall cast through the whirlwind could split some off of the birds for a more conventional battle, while the puller tried to outrun the remainder?), was going to be straightforward.

  One after another, Raitha drew the ravens out to the room’s entrance, where Grythiss took the aggro and fought the bird, face to beak. And every few minutes I saw a sweet new line appear in my second box.

  The Undead Raven is dead. You have gained experience.

  The Undead Raven is dead. You have gained experience.

  The Undead Raven is dead. You have gained experience.

  Happiness, said Aristotle, was living according to your purpose. In fact, I discovered, happiness was going from level 45 to 46 in just forty-seven minutes. It wasn’t just the swiftness of my level increase that filled me with delight, it was the thought that we could farm these ravens all the way to my goal of level 50. And just as heartening, we found an Ornate Glowing Feather on one of the birds. A rare drop but we only needed to bring back four of these for our crafting team.

  Other than that drop, there was nothing to loot except that roughly one in three of the birds dropped quest-related crimson seeds. According to the Crimson Seeds text, the lands around Carrickmor were cursed, with the only way to lift the curse being to sow them with a hundred and one of these seeds. That was a big grind, but that’s what we were here for and I was not discouraged at all about the prospect of killing three hundred ravens. Rather, the opposite.

  ‘I hope they respawn soon,’ I said, ‘this setup is a gift.’

  ‘Where are the stairs up?’ asked Raitha. ‘You could be scouting the next level, which I believe will be the final one.’

  ‘Oh.’ I had assumed that there would be a stairwell at the far end of the room, where the darkness lay so heavy that even my infravision had failed to penetrate it. When I moved to the middle of the chamber, however, and looked about me, I could see that the whole room was lined with pillars and ravens, with no obvious sign of a staircase or exit of any sort. The pattern of the sculpted ravens was odd though. All of them on the wall to my left were depicted as looking over their left shoulders towards the far end of the room, northwards, and all the ones to my right also looked over their left shoulders to the south end of the room, from which we had come. What was strange, though, was that the first few on the north wall did the same, then there came ravens looking to their right, mixed among the leftward facing ones. Also, there was a pillar with no raven at all. The same was true for the southern wall, over the staircase entrance was a jumble of left and right facing ravens and three empty pillars.

  First of all jogging around the room to make sure no unwanted mobs or traps would trigger, I then went back to the group. Both Braja and Sapentia were sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor, side by side, recovering their spirit level. Behind them stood Raitha and Grythiss.

  ‘I’ve something to show you. See the pattern of the ravens above the stairs?’

  ‘Yesss?’

  ‘It’s different to the side walls and different again to the ones opposite. Come and see.’

  ‘You go,’ said Sapentia, ‘I’ll continue to rest.’

  ‘Me too.’

  With my twin and our tank beside me, I walked back across the chamber, our footsteps ringing out loudly. ‘See?’

  ‘That,’ said Raitha with some emphasis, ‘is most definitely a clue.’

  ‘Shall we search for a secret door starting with the empty pillar?’ I suggested.

  Raitha answered with a smile in his voice, ‘Why not. We are half-elves after all.’ While I pressed my hands against cold stone and surveyed every crack, Raitha did the same. After perhaps ten minutes of this, Sapentia and Braja came over to join us. When I looked up at him, I was surprised to see Grythiss instead of helping was squatting low to the ground, scratching the floor with his dagger.

  Going over to see what he had written - surely he wasn’t just writing “Grythiss was here” or something like that? - I saw he’d scrawled 1x1x1Ex111x.

  With what was probably a grin (it was pretty ferocious-looking, all those sharp teeth), our lizardman sprang up and ran back to the other side of the room.

  ‘I have it!’ he called, loudly enough to alert any mobs above us I thought. Still, his enthusiasm was exciting. With a series of pounding footfalls, Grythiss hurried back and added an x to the front of his series.

  ‘Well?’ he gestured triumphantly.

  I looked from his marks to the ravens. ‘X is for rightward looking ones and 1 is for leftward ones,’ I offered.

  ‘Isss true.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It spellsss a word. Two runesss in the language of lizardman, if you number our alphabet and think in …’ he hesitated.

  ‘Oh, I see it!’ Raitha had come around and was looking from the marks on the floor to the wall. ‘It’s binary. Twenty-one and fourteen.’

  ‘Yess!’ Grythiss did a dance. ‘Iss letters for’—he made a horrible coughing sound—‘and’—another rasp—‘together they say…’ with a last short lizzardy shout, the wall beside me disappeared, causing Sapentia to fall forward with a cry.

  There were the stairs up.

  ‘Was it an illusion, the wall?’ wondered Braja aloud.

  ‘Forcewall, probably, said Sapentia.

  ‘Well done, Grythiss, you are very smart for a tank.’ Raitha patted our shadow knight on the back. ‘How did you figure it out?’

  Looking as pleased with himself as a stony-faced lizard could, Grythiss pointed to the far end of the room. ‘Over there isss easier. The ravensss ssspell “down”.’

  ‘Right, well done, Grythiss. So, shall I go on up?’ I asked.

  Raitha answered for them all, ‘Please do.’

  Or not quite them all, Braja disagreed. ‘There’s no need. We could just go back down to wherever the first respawns are, work our way back to here and hope the birds are up again. That’s all we need do for the next day or two. Then we’re home and dry, mission accomplished.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know what’s on the top floor though?’ I asked him. ‘Wouldn’t you like to be the first person to complete the Tower of the Jewelled Skull?’

  ‘Of course I would. I’m as much a gamer as anyone else here. It’s not our mission though. Our mission is to get you and Raitha to fifty and farm for feather drops.’

  With a sigh, I came over to clasp his shoulder. ‘You’re right, Braja. In theory. How about I go up for a look and if there’s a problem, I die and run back up while the rest of you go down a floor?’

  ‘Still not our mission.’

  ‘Assuming we kill the dragon and the game launches as planned. We will get to keep our characters.’ This was Raitha, who sounded as eager as me to complete the tower adventure if we could. ‘There might be a reward worth obtaining from this scenario, like our rewards from Nemain.’

  Amusingly, when Raitha said the name of the Celtic goddess, Grythiss bowed his head respectfully.

  ‘I don’t mean to sound stubborn; I do understand. But it’s not our mission and in any case I haven’t finished with Epic yet. Have you?’

  ‘Before this week, I planned to go back to Epic. There’s still loads of content for us there. If I can stay a vampire in Epic Two, though, that’s pretty cool.’

  Braja was shaking his head.

  Hurriedly, I went on. ‘I wouldn’t split us up though. If you want to stick with Epic, that’s fine by me. I’ll stay there too.’

  ‘Me too.’ Raitha also took Braja by the shoulder, on his other side.

  ‘Lizardman ressspecss bessst healer in world. Will ssstay wherever healer goessss.’

  ‘And I like you guys too,’ added Sapentia. ‘I’d rather go to new game. But if you remain in Epic, I’ll be with you.’

  ‘Awwww,’ I said, ‘group hug!’ And rather clumsily, we all gathered around our cleric for a moment. ‘Now,’ I said, breaking off, ‘am I going up
stairs, or what?’

  ‘Go on then, but be careful,’ muttered Braja.

  The staircase was a copy of the previous one: it ended in a landing with a huge double-door ahead of me and balconies to either side. The only difference was the symbol depicted inside the triangular design above the doors. Instead of a feather, there was a skull.

  I pushed the doors open and there was no resistance.

  Again, the entire floor was one vast room. At the far side was a skull, radiating about twenty beams of various-coloured light in a slowly swirling pattern. As the colourful cones lit up the walls of the room, they slid across ominous-looking statues on plinths: I saw a tiger, a giant spider, a huge scorpion and a polar bear. All posed for violent action. Not very promising. And if the same type of magic was going to come into play as with the raven statues in the room below, the animated version of these would attack.

  As soon as I took one step into the room, the skull shouted at me and even though I was on my toes and alert, it still made me jump.

  ‘Who dares disturb the resting place of Marso, the defeated and humiliated rival of Notrevity the greatest necromancer of her age and of any other?’

  ‘Hi Marso. My name is Klytotoxos. And I wouldn’t say you were humiliated.’ I walked confidently towards the skull. Well, why not? If I wasn’t immune to what was about to happen, I may as well get myself killed quickly. ‘And you never know, someone might come along who can give you the last laugh against Notrevity.’

  ‘Approach me, Klytotoxos, and look into my eyes. If you can attune yourself to me, you shall gain my powers.’

  ‘Well, I shall certainly try.’

  Halfway across the hall, I tried my Read Thoughts ability.

  The Skull of Marso is hoping you are a necromancer, in which case he will transport you to the true Tower of Notrevity in the Plane of the Abyss, where the Lich-Queen will destroy you herself.

  The eye sockets of the skull glowed red and it was easy to focus on them.

  ‘You are a hunter,’ pronounced the skull, disappointed. ‘You cannot attune to me.’

  ‘That’s a shame. I guess I’ll be going then.’ I didn’t turn around though, I was hoping to give the sinister and duplicitous Marso a smack or two with my sword. In fact, I began to sprint towards him.

  ‘Zombies arise!’ shouted the skull; Marso was no fool. Immediately, sounds of heavy, slow-moving creatures thundered out from every direction, though at first I couldn’t see them. With about five metres to go to the skull, a red beam slid right on top of me, dazzling me.

  You have been burned by a Cone of Fire for 0 damage.

  Ouch, these lights were potentially very nasty and there was nothing I could do to avoid being picked out by a pale blue shaft of light if I wanted to continue my run, which I did.

  You have been frozen by a Cone of Frost for 0 damage.

  Then it was my turn.

  You have slashed the Skull of Marso for 12 damage!

  You have slashed the Skull of Marso for 13 damage!

  Two nice hits, forehand and backhand. Not that his hit point bar (which had now appeared) had moved much. And a green cone was swinging through space to land on me. Rolling towards it low to the ground, I managed to avoid being illuminated by the beam, which swung over my head by a fraction. While I’d been prepared to risk the blue beam, guessing it was cold-related, I didn’t fancy green, which might well be acid or poison damage, or paralysation, or anything else that was not covered by my immunities.

  The skull laughed and the thundering, plodding steps of his allies grew nearer. There they were, emerging from their statues, zombie monsters, all at least two metres tall and filling the room with a sickening smell of rot and decay. Should I give up? This was obviously a raid encounter.

  [Group] ‘First bird has popped!’ shouted Raitha excitedly. ‘How are you doing, my friend?’

  [Group] ‘I’ve a magic skull aiming sprays of colour at me and about twenty giant zombie monsters closing in. I think I’d better die and come back to you. In any case, I’ve learned that this whole tower is just some kind of trap to eliminate rival necromancers. The rumour of the skull with superpowers is a lure.’

  [Group] ‘Very well. See you soon.’

  Even though it was relatively slow in its zombie form, the tiger was already beside me, lashing out with still-sharp claws.

  You have been hit by a Zombie Tiger for 0 damage.

  Ahh. But how to die? If I stood about waiting for something to be able to harm me, there was a risk I’d be turned to stone or suffer some other non-lethal but crippling effect from the swirling cones of light (which, with the room now filled with monsters, created a very peculiar scene, like that of a dance club for fans of horror films). Sod this. Not wanting to be stuck on this floor with Marso laughing at me until someone rescued me, I flicked Cloud Form and Invisibility, then rose as fast as I could towards the ceiling.

  With a lurch of my heart, I saw a circle of purple light move towards me across the roof. The beam passed right through me. Hah! No damage or ill effect. Invisibility (or was it the Cloud Form?) was the smart way to deal with attacks from beams of light. As far as I could tell, the colours emanating from the skull were not focused upon me. The zombies were shuffling around aimlessly too.

  ‘I know you’re still here,’ shouted Marso, ‘zombies, form up against the staircase wall, then march together and find him!’

  There was rather more purpose to the action of the monsters now and it was quite a spectacular scene, all these horrid, fierce-looking creatures groaning and shuffling forward in a long line that was occasionally picked out - with no apparent consequence - by a drifting cone of coloured light. Had I been some fool of a rogue, hiding by a statue, I’d have been terrified. As it was, I drifted slowly over the advancing line, then dropped down and flowed over a balcony and down to the raven room, arriving just in time for the message:

  The Undead Raven is dead. You gain experience.

  Removing the Cloud Form, I rejoined my friends, just as the next raven arrived. It was perfect really. As we’d killed the birds at staggered intervals, they were each returning at an exact period (about thirty minutes) after their individual deaths, rather than all together in a far more challenging whirlwind of birds.

  As soon as I struck at the raven (missing), my Invisibility ended.

  ‘Oh, hello, that was quick,’ said Raitha, who was beside me, slashing away with his longsword.

  ‘I used my abilities; it was safer than trying to get myself killed.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  While we settled into a routine of eliminating the ravens, I explained to the others how I’d read the thoughts of the skull and my theory that this whole tower was a trap for necromancers. ‘Imagine we’d organised the first ever raid to clear that top floor and we’d a necromancer with us. Just as we thought we were finished, boom! Transported to the Plane of the Abyss, wherever that is, and facing a new tower, the residence of a Lich-Queen.’

  ‘It would be wonderful and yet awful at the same time,’ mused Raitha.’

  ‘Almost certainly a wipe and yet, it would be a massive incentive to level up and bring the numbers needed to raid the second tower.’ I was thinking how I’d relish such a challenge.

  ‘We should keep secret of tower. Especially if we not stay in Epic Two.’ Sapentia stood up and finished our current mob with a flash of lightning that caused the air to crackle all around me.

  ‘I agree, let’s try not to spoil the surprise.’

  After the next cycle of ravens was complete, I was level 47. We also had a second Ornate Glowing Feather and another twenty crimson seeds. Rather than go down a level and keep up the grind, we decided to unclip and use the thirty-minute respawn interval to take a break.

  As our group walked through the Den - to a number of friendly acknowledgements - I felt that there was a cheerful tone to the room, despite the fact that the map showed city after city as occupied by evil creatures. While the NPC world was succumbing
to darkness, the players were coming to the rescue. Up on the leader board, our list of characters was impressive. It was headed with the players in the Desert of Endless Screams, who had levelled fast enough for most of them to stay ahead of us: a real achievement given they hadn’t the advantage of a puller with vampiric immunities. Serethina, their bard, was 57; Rubblethumper, warrior 55; Roberta, necro 51; Silva, cleric 50; Rasquelle, rogue 50; Woan, cleric 48; and Oveidio, warrior 46.

  Our group were up there too and it was really strange to see my name so high: Grythiss, shadow knight 48; Sapentia, sorceress 49; myself and Raitha, hunters 47; Braja, cleric 46; and Tuscl, shaman 50. Tombalinor’s group hadn’t done quite as well, but fighting underwater was challenging. And they had been farming for the trade skills items we needed. In that light, Tombalinor’s level 49 and the rest of his group in the high 30s, low 40s, was fine. Then we had dozens of players in their 20s. It was comfortably enough for items we needed to farm and it was strong enough already, assuming the guide was still valid, for the raid on the Ziggurat of the Smoke God.

  Chapter 30

  Tezpeylipoca

  Wednesday evening (after game sunset, of course) and we were raiding the Ziggurat of the Smoke God. Really, this was the last obstacle to the implementation of our plan, other than finding and executing the dragon herself. We needed eight shards that dropped from the ominously named boss. According to the guide, he was level 62, which was going to be a challenge. I wanted to have a go at him, though, because the sooner we could manage him the better. Potentially, if we were unlucky on the number of shards that dropped and the length of time before he respawned, we could fail to get the Arrows of Dragon Slaying made within the next fortnight, or even the month.

  To give everyone a break from their boring jobs (some players were harvesting common items for eight hours at a stretch), I had called in the whole team. The low-level types could and were, running around outside the ziggurat, clearing the yard trash. Even Scarlet was given a break from her bowyer upskilling and invited to join the fun; after all, she’d reached 213 in the skill, which was well ahead of schedule.