“The world of NEMO carries a legacy of over 100,000 years of civilization. The rise and fall of numerous empires left scars and treasures across the landscape. Some left no records, others filled vast libraries that still exist today, preserved through magic. Unraveling the rich and complex tapestry of the world’s events will occupy academics for many lifetimes.”

  From “Virtual World, Real History” by Dr. Nia Toll

  Year 1, Month 1, Day 28, 17:00

  Torgon pitched his voice low and gave instructions. “Stay low, move fast. Keep the mound between us and the enemy. We need to get to the other side of the formation as fast as we can without giving our position away.” Torgon led the youngsters through the mounds, skirting the central mound and sprinting around the edge to block the line of sight with the fleeing players and hunting undead. Once around, they broke into a dead run and clambered to the opposite side of the mound, crawled up and watched the scene unfold.

  The survivors of the Young Master’s warband tried to reform around the first mound, using the high ground to give themselves an advantage. The skeletons surrounded the mound and occupied the attention of their melee combatants. Luckily for them, none of the giants were still around, but they had been forced to abandon their ballistae in their mad rush for safety. Torgon’s blood ran cold as he watched ghostly shapes emerge from the center of the mound and begin slaughtering the band’s remaining casters. Their line shattered with foes in front of them and behind them. Each death sent purple and black energy cascading around the mounds that coalesced into a pulsing unearthly glow. The pulses increased in speed and Torgon cried out in pain as a freezing chill spread from his chest.

  He looked down to see a spectral hand raking incorporeal talons across his chest leaving trails of deathly frost. He stumbled backwards in alarm, tumbling down the mound. He quickly stood and brought out his longsword and yelled for everyone else to do the same. “Magic only, physical weapons won’t damage them.” They struck the monsters, temporarily driving them back, and began a hasty retreat from the mounds. The skeletons approached rapidly, fresh from their victory over the hapless adventurer warband.

  “Simon, Lillian, with me,” Torgon barked. “Pattie, Stana, lead us out of here. Everyone else focus on anything trying to flank us or get around our tank line. We’ll hold the rear. Move as quickly as you can without separating.”

  The spectral enemies spread wide but thankfully seemed unable to go below the true ground. They held at the edge of the mounds and were joined by the skeletons. The pulsing lights soon became a solid glowing formation that lit up a wide area. The rock entrances to the smaller mounds reshaped themselves into open passages and undead creatures marched forward from them to mass within the ritual formation.

  Each of the smaller barrows produced one skeletal figure every five seconds. Every minute, the central barrow produced a creature clad in rotted flesh and armor that joined the undead and led them in the direction of one of the outposts. Every minute, 85 undead spread out to attack the footholds of the living inside the land of the Forgotten Empire. Torgon alerted Ovarrix and the other large raid teams from Risk of Injury and they hunkered down to wait.

  Less than 45 minutes had passed before Ovarrix, and his team of 1,000 adventurers arrived. He greeted the little scout party, “Hey guys! I brought friends. Our other farm teams are moving here and cleaning the spawns out. We have scouts eyeing the main Young Master teams, so we’ll know when they start moving. The experience from killing the spawns is normal, but their loot is substandard. Are we going to try and milk the waves or see how to disrupt it?”

  Torgon waited for the rest of the command team to arrive and spoke, “Put teams in front of each mound. I think we need to break the formation. The central doorway was intact when we arrived so I’m hoping it’s a dungeon.”

  “Outstanding!” Ovarrix exclaimed. He fired off orders to his force and soon each spawn point was covered with the undead being annihilated the moment they emerged. “Everything is in place Torg. Wanna check it out now?”

  Torgon shook his head as he watched Ovarrix shifting from foot to foot impatiently. He walked to the entrance and reached his hand out. A system message greeted him.

  “You have found a scaling Dungeon! The Barrow of the Wight Lord is waiting to be explored. The recommended level for this dungeon is 5 to 15. Normal mode is selected. Hard mode will be available when Normal is cleared. Expert mode will be available when Hard mode is cleared. Normal mode requires a minimum pain threshold of 50%. There are four available group sizes, 5, 10, 15 and 20. Would you like to enter?”

  Torgon declined the option and called everyone over. “We get to pick what size group we take in, four modes from 5 to 20.”

  “Definitely do the 20 man.” Ovarrix suggested. “We have the people and it should be fun.”

  Hyperia interjected, “We have a thousand people here with a few thousand more incoming. We should do all the modes at once. Organize everybody that wants to delve an unknown dungeon into groups and blitz it. If we’re lucky, there will be first clear rewards at every group size. We have 12 to 24 hours maximum before the area is flooded with players.”

  Torgon eyed Hyperia, “Do you think the Young Master’s will try to hold the complex and monopolize the dungeon? It would be what they want to do obviously, but do they have the manpower to spare?”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Hyperia pursed her lips in thought, “No, they’ll come out here in force to engage us, but you’re right. I don’t think they have enough people. They’ve had to lower their suppression of the unaligned players and small guilds in their areas. Too many were jumping ship.”

  Allestor grinned, “Want to do the funniest thing possible?” Everyone turned to look at him, the eagerness written across his face. “We send everyone inside the dungeon. We keep everyone inside the dungeon until they get here, then we all jump out and slaughter them. Obviously, we’ll yell Surprise!”

  Ovarrix looked at the entrance to the dungeon with a thoughtful expression on his face. “I think I agree with Allestor. We could pull off an ambush that would set them back and keep them out of our hair for a while. Our people are better trained, more coordinated and we have a hard-core group of residents along with the time restricted players. They don’t have that option. We could schedule it to coordinate the timing. I think we should do it.”

  Hyperia looked at Torgon, eagerness in her eyes, “People can clear as far as they think is safe, then hunt respawns while waiting. It wouldn’t set us back much. It’s excellent training for everyone and they’re right. We can deal a massive blow to the Young Master’s Alliance and push them close to crumbling completely.”

  Torgon smiled wolfishly, “Alright. Let’s do it. If the undead keep spawning while we’re inside, it might make them think we’ve left or died. Hype, pass the word to have our scouts kill theirs and then have everyone double time it here. Ovarrix, organize test teams to see if they can enter the dungeon and leave without being trapped. We need to map out the emergence spot and plan accordingly. Get everyone into their dungeon teams and we’ll do a mix of all dungeon sizes. I want at least 40 teams for each dungeon setting.”

  The Risk of Injury forces sprang into action. Opposing scouts died with very few realizing they were under attack before being sent to respawn. Nearly 4,000 players filled the area and sorted themselves into dungeon groups while Ovarrix ran the experiments. The dungeons let people enter and leave freely. One unlucky player discovered that upon dying you were merely sent to entrance of the dungeon with the option to exit or try to rejoin your team.

  Torgon called his scout team over and gave them the news. “You’re all coming with us on a 20-man run through the dungeon. The nine of you, plus Curious Kate, will form two teams. You’ll be joined by our primary leadership team and our main old folks team.” Laughter spread among them. They were all familiar with Mark, Steve, Ashford, Frare and Physical Ed. The older players frequently offered useful advice to the younger players, even Steve.

  Torgon called out, “Form up all the teams on the dungeon entrance. We’ll go in order, 5 man, 10, 15 and 20. Our group will go in last. Do it fast so we don’t need to worry about the undead spawns. Good luck everyone, stay in contact with guild chats and keep abreast of scout reports. Emergence will be planned for the earliest at 07:00. When it’s closer to time, we’ll evaluate how far from the end of the dungeon groups are and what’s lurking outside. Prioritize staying alive over progression and have fun.” He motioned for the teams to start moving and players began winking out of existence as they teleported inside the dungeon proper. The lines moved quickly and Torgon placed his hand inside the entrance, accepted the prompt and felt his body blur into a different plane of existence.

  The entrance of the dungeon featured stone walls and an open area lit by magical torches on the walls and glowing globes on the ceiling. Intricately carved runes ran along the walls, and the floor was covered by a mosaic depicting a ziggurat topped by a whirlwind of necrotic energy. Dusty ran around the room, copying the patterns into her notebook. Her collection of the script of the Forgotten Empire continued to grow along with her desire to know.

  A single hallway, framed by stone arches and lit by magical torches beckoned. The hallway curved and prevented the team from seeing where it led. Torgon spoke, “Everybody relax for a few minutes while Dusty copies the runes. We’ll listen to the reports and do some quick planning before commencing our run.” All the groups proceeded with care and the most important piece of information learned at the beginning was that the undead inside the barrow were immune to non-magical damage. Thankfully, all the groups that Risk of Injury had dispatched to the broken hills carried enchanted weapons.

  Dusty finished copying and shared what she discovered. “I don’t know how many still exist, but there are more than a dozen of these formations scattered across the Broken Hills. When they’re activated, they’re supposed to push the influence of the surviving rulers of the Forgotten Empire into the surrounding lands. I suppose surviving might not be the right term, they’re all undead. Existing maybe?”

  “Anyway,” she brushed off her scattered thoughts. “They’ll continue to spawn undead until the dungeon is completed. When it’s completed it will shut down for an undetermined period of time, a few days to a few sixdays, then it can be restarted with enough spilled blood in the formation. The fighting outside triggered the spawning. It pulls power from deep within the ley lines that run below the region.”

  “Does it give any information on the creatures within or the bosses?” Ovarrix asked.

  Dusty nodded her head vigorously, “It does! The wight lord in each of the formations was a powerful warrior when the empire existed. They had to have a powerful constitution to handle the magical energies being channeled through them. It will be significantly weakened from the power it had during its lifetime, but one of the tradeoffs was that nothing nonmagical can damage anything in here. It’s slightly out of phase with the material plane.”

  “There will be a total of eight bosses within the dungeon, corresponding to the barrows above. Seven of them will be a mix of warriors and mages from when the Forgotten Empire was just the Empire.” She paused again, “It probably had a name, but well, it’s forgotten. Maybe we can find it?” She looked hopefully at the others.

  “Do the inscriptions talk about traps?” Hyperia asked.

  “Hrmm,” Dusty scratched her forehead. “Again, there doesn’t seem to be any mention of physical traps. Once we leave the entrance, we’ll be exposed to the raw magical energy that they’re using to spread the miasma. Our amulets will degrade faster here than on the surface.”

  Ovarrix nodded and started issuing commands. “Dusty, Ed, you two will lead. Simon, Lillian, the two of you will follow and pick up anything that attacks from behind. When we’re engaged you can move into whatever tanking positions are necessary. Early reports indicate that the room layouts are similar but the room sizes match more closely with the size of the party attempting the dungeon.”

  “It’s time to start our run.”