“When we teleport in, any spells or abilities that use mana may not work.” Elijah told Bo as they prepared for the final teleport that would take them into the Reaper lair.
“Right, the mana mage. I told Alan that class was too powerful even for a Legendary-tier. Should have been at least celestial.”
Elijah stopped and looked at Bo. “Wait, what do you mean?”
Bo laughed at the expression on Elijah’s face. “I told you I was a dev. I was part of the balance team. Alan was a colleague who worked specifically on the balance of classes.”
“Well, I’d say it’s still pretty broken. It’s a complete counter to most casters unless they have enough mana to overload them like Mara did.” He reached his hand out and called his scouts back to him. They landed weightlessly on his arm, nestling close into the fabric of his shirt. “You ready?”
“Yeah, I always wanted to get trapped forever in a glitched dungeon run by psychotic madmen.” Bo shrugged and reached out his hand, touching Elijah’s shoulder. Elijah channeled his mana into a teleport and selected the same spot in Raystown that he’d chosen before.
Dark shadows formed where there had been none in the midday sun before bursting upwards in the usual swarm of bats.
The smell hit him first—the smell of wet dog. As the bats returned to the shadows, Elijah found he was in the same room that he and Bitter Root had landed in days ago.
[Quest Updated]
The Reaper’s Guild
Description: You find yourself back in the Reaper's Guild lair. There is a chance to save the prisoner, to release him from the bonds of these maniacs. You already trapped him in the game; are you going to fail to give him his freedom here too?
His quest progressed further, but the text made Elijah’s stomach flip with guilt. This was all his fault, and even the AI was giving him grief over it.
Elijah reached out with his power and tried to feel if the ‘Mana Siphon’ was active. To his surprise, it wasn’t. “No siphon. Guess the Mana Mage is out.”
“Or still recovering.”
He put a finger up to his lips at Bo before moving to the door and opening it slowly. He let his bats loose in the rest of the complex, sending a mental signal to them to be as quiet and discreet as possible.
He shut the door and turned to Bo. “Alright, is there any way for us to find the dungeon core easily?”
“Yes, but it isn’t normally accessible to players. When an admin has to access the core, it’s normally hidden within the walls of a dungeon’s boss chamber.”
“If we can get close, then I might be able to draw it out or reach out to it through the wall.”
“We’re going to have to be sneaky. I have my skill, but we’re going to have to rely on your native ability to remain quiet. Unless you’ve absorbed a Rogue class as well.”
A thought sparked in Elijah’s mind. A memory from the last time he was here. “No, I didn’t, but I think I might have a solution to being quiet.”
Elijah chugged down a mana potion to refill his reserves and then summoned Bitter Root. The goblin took one look at the room around him and took a deep breath as if he was about to start screaming. Bo’s dagger met the side of Bitter Root’s throat. “Screaming would be an unwise decision.” The man hissed dangerously.
Bitter Root eyed Bo wearily before closing his mouth. “Ya, me be good. No scream, just like scary not boss say.”
“Bitter Root. That trick you did with your stealth skill the last time we were here. I need you to do it again.”
Bitter Root crooked his head to the side, staring with a dumbfounded, uncomprehending expression. “Hiding us both with your Stealth skill, Bitter Root.”
“Oh! Boss want sneaky sneaky gob. Me can do that.”
Bitter Root put his hands out towards Elijah and closed his eyes. Then he began chanting something under his breath. Elijah could hear the goblin muttering something about ‘darkness’ and ‘shadow love’.
“What are you doing?” Bo asked.
Bitter Root opened his eyes and huffed at the rogue. “Me channel shadows with words. Need cast spell to make sneaky sneak.”
Elijah bonked his head. “No, you don’t. You didn’t need a spell the last time you cast it.”
Bitter Root huffed loudly. “Fine, big boss have no drama flair. Never get a girl without drama flair.”
Shadows enveloped Elijah and Bitter Root as the goblin’s stealth skill activated. Bo took a step back and let out a low whistle. “Dang, that’s a powerful stealth skill he has.” Bo crouched slightly, and Elijah watched as the shadows enveloped him. Elijah could barely make out the faint outline of the man. It was like the game recognized them as allies and made it easier for them to coordinate by giving the faintest feeling of where they were.
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“Let’s go.” Bo’s voice came, ethereal, quiet and seeming to come from everywhere all at once. The door to the room opened. He followed the rogue out and down the hallway, the opposite way to the one that Elijah had taken in his escape.
Several times his scouts forced visions into his head about patrols heading their way, and they had to hide inside passages and open rooms.
Bo gripped his shoulder during one of these hiding sessions and leaned in. “This is definitely an old dungeon. There are markings if you know how to look for them. Differences between dungeons and player-made hideouts.”
A pressure had been building in Elijah’s skull the further they went, not painful or even noticeable unless he focused on it. He could feel it now; the dungeon core was getting closer. “I think I can feel the dungeon core. It’s like a presence in the back of my mind.”
Bo grunted his acknowledgement and then led the way out of the room and down the hall. As they moved, the pressure became more intense. It wasn’t painful, not like a headache; instead, it was almost a pleasurable experience. Like the game was telling him he belonged close to the core, that the core loved him and he should love the core.
He screwed his eyes shut as he realized what he was thinking. That thought was so out of character for him he immediately realized that it wasn’t his own thoughts.
He tried to shake it off, tried to get the thoughts out of his mind as they moved forward. In front of him, Bo stopped and put a hand back to stop Elijah and Bitter Root. Elijah couldn’t see into the next room as it was around a corner, but Bo could.
Slowly Bo turned and pulled him back along the hallway to an empty room they’d found. Once they were both safely hidden away with the door shut, Bo let his ‘Stealth’ drop. Bitter Root did the same after a moment.
“What’s up?” Elijah asked him.
Bo moved over by the door and cracked it open again. “There’s a group of enemies inside the boss chamber. They don’t look like combatants; they look like they’re just some weaklings that the Reapers are using to stop the boss from respawning.”
“Initiates? Just rabble who want to join the guild but have to prove they’re willing to do the bull work?” Elijah suggested.
“Probably. All of them are level two or three. Just out of the tutorial.”
“Are we sure that they aren’t just people that the Reaper’s captured and are holding here?”
Bo shrugged. “I didn’t see any guards or any way of keeping them here.”
“The whole dungeon is crawling with Reapers. It wouldn’t be necessary to guard them.”
“Still, if we assume that they’re prisoners, then we lose our advantage if they aren’t. It would be better to kill them anyway. If they die, they’ll respawn and have a chance at escaping.”
Elijah had to consider that for a moment. Bo had a point, but he didn’t like the idea of killing helpless or innocent players without trying first. He closed his eyes and felt the steady pressure of the dungeon core in his mind.
“Bo?” he asked, his voice quiet and almost reverent. “Have you ever heard of the Dungeon Core Guardian class?”
Bo’s gaze shifted quickly back towards him. “You’re kidding, right?”
Elijah shook his head. Bo had to suppress a chuckle. “You have no idea how lucky you are. Or how much the game is cheesing your luck. Though depending on how it interacts with you, you might be very unlucky.”
That unnerved Elijah slightly, but Bo continued before he could speak.
“The Dungeon Core Guardian isn’t supposed to be in the game at all. We experimented with it shortly after launch as a potential way to give players more features.”
“The plan was to give players the ability to create their own dungeons. It never got past beta testing because the class we gave them had weird interactions with their minds. Some of them anyway.” Bo sat down on a crate and shook his head. “They started going crazy and refused to leave the dungeons, or even to log out. Spouting off nonsense about how much the cores loved them.”
That explained the odd thoughts that had been brushing past his mind lately. He closed his eyes again, trying to really feel the draw of the core. He could feel it close; it wanted him to touch it. To come to it.
Without meaning to, he pushed past Bo and walked towards the far wall.
“Bo, you said that the core is hidden in the wall of the boss room, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“This wall here. It borders the boss room. Doesn’t it?” His hand reached out and touched the wall. He felt the core thrumming in his mind.
Bo didn’t have a chance to reply as Elijah backed away from the wall, pulling the core through the solid stone as he moved. The orb hummed with a deep red light, casting the entire room in its eerie glow.
“I’ve never seen a red core before. I think something is wrong with it.”
Elijah didn’t think there was something wrong with it. He knew there was. Someone had messed with it to the point that the core was barely holding itself together. As if he had some kind of a psychic link with the core.
“Alright, Bo, how do I do this?” The glowing red set something off in the primal part of his brain. A warning beacon, or predator’s colors designed to scare him away. Even so, he felt an overwhelming draw towards the core. As if he wanted to be a part of it, a part of something greater.
“You have to touch it. Once it’s activated, you should see a screen pop up that will have various choices. If it’s like the beta test anyway.”
He was nervous about touching the core, but finally reached forward, his hand barely grazing its surface before a trio of pop-ups sprung into his face.
[Error!]
Dungeon Core too damaged for integration with Dungeon Core Guardian.
~~~
[Error!]
Reality Warper Class has additional options associated with item type: Dungeon Core
~~~
[Alert]
Synchronizing Reality Warp Class with Dungeon Core Guardian sub-class.
His mind stung as he read the words; the pressure no longer soothed him. The pain grew, but he kept his hand on the core. Bitter Root screeched once before he seemed to shatter in a spray of blue mana crystals.
After a few moments, a new menu popped up in his mind. He could sense that his Reality Warper class had somehow changed with the Dungeon Core Guardian class, but he didn’t have time to look into it.
[Core Interface]
Core: The Hearth Forge
Options:
- Defenses
- Monsters
- Traps
- Bosses
- Spawn Points
- Core Playback
(Status:
Allies Present: 2
Enemies Present: 47
Neutrals Present: 1
Monsters Present: 0
Core Stability: 44%
)
“I’m in Bo. I have access.”