Chapter 94: SO MUCH I
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Chapter 94: SO MUCH I
Crucis caught up with the other Assassins in a long, narrow cave passage which occasionally plummeted downwards.
The pieces of [Kaxil Pyrite Ore] had been easy to find, since they were seemingly all at the positions marked with the crossed-swords symbol on John Hazlitt's map. The four players had split up and easily gathered seven of the eight pieces of ore required. However, the last of these symbols was deep in the mines, close to the 'Lost Man's Resting Place,' and they met here to take this dicey journey.
As Crucis reached the end of this long passageway, keeping his left hand on the black stone wall to steady himself as the passage sloped unevenly downwards, he saw that Danemy had stopped and seemed to be looking through a large chink in the right wall. Walking over to the right, he saw that the thick wall had about six jagged holes in it, each around the size of a hand. A large chamber could be seen through these, appearing like a mosaic through the array of cracks.
In this chamber, there was a large, distant pit filled with rotting bodies, some with mining tools still strapped to them. Crucis estimated about 30 to 40 corpses. There was a faint, red mist draping the pit, and some of the bodies had long tracts of black, burnt skin.The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.
"This must be some of the other miners which John killed," DicingDevil said, as he took in the scene.
"Yes. Well, at least now we know where the bodies are buried," Crucis replied contently.
"This chamber must be fairly deep in the mines, we're getting close."
"That's a lot of bodies," Akshel remarked. "John wasn't kidding about going to war in the mines."
"Yep," Danemy said. "And what's that shape drifting across the walls? It looks like a large, black snake?"
The group looked in the direction that Danemy was facing, and saw a sinister, dark-brown shape comfortably slithering between small niches in the pit's left wall. In this dim light, it almost looked black.
"That's brown, I think," Crucis said. "But it's hard to tell in this light. Its nametag says [Spotted Brown Snake]."
"So it does. And level 450! That would be painful. I guess the deeper parts of the mine are basically off-limits, then."
"It's alright, we just need to pick up the pyrite and scram," DicingDevil said. "Since you have the map, how close are we to the sword symbol?"
"Um, it's only a few more minutes, I'd guess? A long, winding passage to the left from here, then a ladder — wait, the ladders down here are mostly broken. So, then, the long passage to the left, then turning right, then a steep downwards slope back towards the end of that first passage — now on the bottom end of the ladder. After that, just a few quick turns and we'll be near the Lost Man's Resting Place."
"Got it. Let's go."
The group set off, and found themselves in a long, dusty leftwards passage which looked like a zoomed-in snake's burrow. On the way, they stepped over the corpses of eight players which they found littering the path. Each took turns in looting these corpses, and Crucis was pleased to find some high-quality blacksmithing tools and a small collection of valuable [Young Kaxil Deer Pelt] in the corpses which he inspected.
Since the settlement was seemingly known to a few players by now, as a place to gather crafting materials, it wasn't that surprising that a few people had found their way into the mines, possibly taking the pyrite quest.
After five minutes, they had reached the hallway leading to the Lost Man's Resting Place. This was where the final crossed-swords symbol was drawn.
The passage leading to the Lost Man's Resting Place was long and filled with a faint, red mist that crawled along the ground. Its roof was high, and, along with the dry ice-like mist, made the passage look almost like a majestic cathdral hallway in a film.
As the group proceeded cautiously down this dark hallway, they saw that this passage led to a short, smaller tunnel, that formed an entryway to the large chamber known as the Lost Man's Resting Place. A few corpses lined the ground beneath them, both players and NPCs, but none had any possessions remaining.
Reaching past the halfway point of the passage, Crucis stumbled over a corpse laid horizontally across the passage. It had seemingly had its arms and legs stretched until they hung apart from each end of the body, like on a rack. As he leaned against a wall to keep his balance, he saw that the corpse was carrying a letter.
He picked this up, and began to read, as the rest of the group clustered around.
Theo Mistril,
An unexpected guest! I regret that I was not able to roll out a carpet in your honour. You must forgive the indignity, and I will make amends for it in due course.
I would have prepared further, knowing that you take an interest in matters around this location, but I had expected you to still be exhausted after recent events.
After a few seconds, Danemy jolted forwards, seeing something shine beneath a pile of dust on the right side of the passage.
However, he stopped in his tracks as he heard the loud, threatening sound of a snake's hiss coming from just in front of him. As he looked up, he saw that two, bright red orbs - like eyes - had appeared on the wall above the entry to the Lost Man's Resting Place. A loud, low-pitched hissing sound resounded through the entryway, and the walls around him seemed to shake slightly.
He darted for the [Kaxil Pyrite Ore], and grabbed it, then backtracked quickly away.
The snake eyes also faded, leaving silence for a few seconds. Soon, Crucis overheard two faint, whispering voices from inside the Lost Man's Resting Place.
"The hounds approach... flee... the howls..."
"The stampede..."
"Who dares... who dares?"
"Misery's... cloak... cloak..."
The faint sound of scratching emerged from the direction of the Lost Man's Resting Place, and soon became clearly the metallic scrape of claws scraping the hard stone walls.
"These must be the children of Dravaistaya," DicingDevil said. "Well, let's not stick around."
He took the map from Danemy, and guided the group as they fled through mazy tunnels towards the entrance.
After a few minutes, while trying to climb a steep passage, they were surprised to hear a loud noise scrambling across the roof behind them. Looking back, Crucis saw a skeletal humanoid figure crawling effortlessly across the roof. Its nametag said [Undead Crawler], and it was level 70.
As it lunged out a long arm to grab him, he used an agile [Slash] at its hand to deflect it. Danemy grabbed onto the creature and leapt up until he had one foot on the roof, then stabbed and kicked violently at its hands and legs until it fell to the ground. Crucis and Akshel struck hard against one of its legs, which began to crack heavily. It seemed unable to get up.
It was down to about 68% HP. However, the loud patter of pawsteps came out from behind it, as a stampede of large hounds tried to navigate these steep passages. One howled loudly.
"Leave it. We aren't sticking around, no?" Crucis said, stepping hastily away from the Crawler's reaching arms.
"Sure, let's go. By the time we kill it, the rest will catch up with us," DicingDevil said, using his hands to climb up a steep drop in the passage. "This one seemingly caught up faster because it was climbing the roof. The rest of the skeletons were stampeding along the ground, they seemingly got in each other's way in the steep, narrow tunnels."
They ran off through the mines again, until after a few minutes they saw the light of the mine's entryway. As the players escaped towards it, a few loud growls were heard from a short distance behind them. A small group of skeletal wild dogs, with smears of blood across their bones, glared aggressively at the players, but did not dare approach the mine's exit.
"The blood must be from the collisions during the stampede," Danemy said. "It must have been havoc. Probably most of them gave up by now."
After a brief stand-off, the dogs walked calmly back into the mines. Their legs clanked tiredly.
However, one enemy did not retreat. It hurtled towards Akshel as he made his way out of the mines.
Crucis glanced at this quick-moving shape. It was a headless chicken, and it flapped its wings aimlessly as it charged.
He quickly intercepted its run with a [Lunge], and it impaled itself on his sword. As the rest of the group fell in with harsh strikes, the chicken soon fell to the ground, dead. Its feathers had fallen away, leaving only its dry bones lying on the ground.
"Did anyone hear that thing cluck as it died?" Danemy said, bemused.
"Yes," DicingDevil said. "How strange. It didn't have a head, after all."
"Chickens are weird," Crucis said, then paused for a moment. "Anyway, what's the awful racket out here?"
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Chapter 94: SO MUCH I
Crucis caught up with the other Assassins in a long, narrow cave passage which occasionally plummeted downwards.
The pieces of [Kaxil Pyrite Ore] had been easy to find, since they were seemingly all at the positions marked with the crossed-swords symbol on John Hazlitt's map. The four players had split up and easily gathered seven of the eight pieces of ore required. However, the last of these symbols was deep in the mines, close to the 'Lost Man's Resting Place,' and they met here to take this dicey journey.
As Crucis reached the end of this long passageway, keeping his left hand on the black stone wall to steady himself as the passage sloped unevenly downwards, he saw that Danemy had stopped and seemed to be looking through a large chink in the right wall. Walking over to the right, he saw that the thick wall had about six jagged holes in it, each around the size of a hand. A large chamber could be seen through these, appearing like a mosaic through the array of cracks.
In this chamber, there was a large, distant pit filled with rotting bodies, some with mining tools still strapped to them. Crucis estimated about 30 to 40 corpses. There was a faint, red mist draping the pit, and some of the bodies had long tracts of black, burnt skin.The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.
"This must be some of the other miners which John killed," DicingDevil said, as he took in the scene.
"Yes. Well, at least now we know where the bodies are buried," Crucis replied contently.
"This chamber must be fairly deep in the mines, we're getting close."
"That's a lot of bodies," Akshel remarked. "John wasn't kidding about going to war in the mines."
"Yep," Danemy said. "And what's that shape drifting across the walls? It looks like a large, black snake?"
The group looked in the direction that Danemy was facing, and saw a sinister, dark-brown shape comfortably slithering between small niches in the pit's left wall. In this dim light, it almost looked black.
"That's brown, I think," Crucis said. "But it's hard to tell in this light. Its nametag says [Spotted Brown Snake]."
"So it does. And level 450! That would be painful. I guess the deeper parts of the mine are basically off-limits, then."
"It's alright, we just need to pick up the pyrite and scram," DicingDevil said. "Since you have the map, how close are we to the sword symbol?"
"Um, it's only a few more minutes, I'd guess? A long, winding passage to the left from here, then a ladder — wait, the ladders down here are mostly broken. So, then, the long passage to the left, then turning right, then a steep downwards slope back towards the end of that first passage — now on the bottom end of the ladder. After that, just a few quick turns and we'll be near the Lost Man's Resting Place."
"Got it. Let's go."
The group set off, and found themselves in a long, dusty leftwards passage which looked like a zoomed-in snake's burrow. On the way, they stepped over the corpses of eight players which they found littering the path. Each took turns in looting these corpses, and Crucis was pleased to find some high-quality blacksmithing tools and a small collection of valuable [Young Kaxil Deer Pelt] in the corpses which he inspected.
Since the settlement was seemingly known to a few players by now, as a place to gather crafting materials, it wasn't that surprising that a few people had found their way into the mines, possibly taking the pyrite quest.
After five minutes, they had reached the hallway leading to the Lost Man's Resting Place. This was where the final crossed-swords symbol was drawn.
The passage leading to the Lost Man's Resting Place was long and filled with a faint, red mist that crawled along the ground. Its roof was high, and, along with the dry ice-like mist, made the passage look almost like a majestic cathdral hallway in a film.
As the group proceeded cautiously down this dark hallway, they saw that this passage led to a short, smaller tunnel, that formed an entryway to the large chamber known as the Lost Man's Resting Place. A few corpses lined the ground beneath them, both players and NPCs, but none had any possessions remaining.
Reaching past the halfway point of the passage, Crucis stumbled over a corpse laid horizontally across the passage. It had seemingly had its arms and legs stretched until they hung apart from each end of the body, like on a rack. As he leaned against a wall to keep his balance, he saw that the corpse was carrying a letter.
He picked this up, and began to read, as the rest of the group clustered around.
Theo Mistril,
An unexpected guest! I regret that I was not able to roll out a carpet in your honour. You must forgive the indignity, and I will make amends for it in due course.
I would have prepared further, knowing that you take an interest in matters around this location, but I had expected you to still be exhausted after recent events.
After a few seconds, Danemy jolted forwards, seeing something shine beneath a pile of dust on the right side of the passage.
However, he stopped in his tracks as he heard the loud, threatening sound of a snake's hiss coming from just in front of him. As he looked up, he saw that two, bright red orbs - like eyes - had appeared on the wall above the entry to the Lost Man's Resting Place. A loud, low-pitched hissing sound resounded through the entryway, and the walls around him seemed to shake slightly.
He darted for the [Kaxil Pyrite Ore], and grabbed it, then backtracked quickly away.
The snake eyes also faded, leaving silence for a few seconds. Soon, Crucis overheard two faint, whispering voices from inside the Lost Man's Resting Place.
"The hounds approach... flee... the howls..."
"The stampede..."
"Who dares... who dares?"
"Misery's... cloak... cloak..."
The faint sound of scratching emerged from the direction of the Lost Man's Resting Place, and soon became clearly the metallic scrape of claws scraping the hard stone walls.
"These must be the children of Dravaistaya," DicingDevil said. "Well, let's not stick around."
He took the map from Danemy, and guided the group as they fled through mazy tunnels towards the entrance.
After a few minutes, while trying to climb a steep passage, they were surprised to hear a loud noise scrambling across the roof behind them. Looking back, Crucis saw a skeletal humanoid figure crawling effortlessly across the roof. Its nametag said [Undead Crawler], and it was level 70.
As it lunged out a long arm to grab him, he used an agile [Slash] at its hand to deflect it. Danemy grabbed onto the creature and leapt up until he had one foot on the roof, then stabbed and kicked violently at its hands and legs until it fell to the ground. Crucis and Akshel struck hard against one of its legs, which began to crack heavily. It seemed unable to get up.
It was down to about 68% HP. However, the loud patter of pawsteps came out from behind it, as a stampede of large hounds tried to navigate these steep passages. One howled loudly.
"Leave it. We aren't sticking around, no?" Crucis said, stepping hastily away from the Crawler's reaching arms.
"Sure, let's go. By the time we kill it, the rest will catch up with us," DicingDevil said, using his hands to climb up a steep drop in the passage. "This one seemingly caught up faster because it was climbing the roof. The rest of the skeletons were stampeding along the ground, they seemingly got in each other's way in the steep, narrow tunnels."
They ran off through the mines again, until after a few minutes they saw the light of the mine's entryway. As the players escaped towards it, a few loud growls were heard from a short distance behind them. A small group of skeletal wild dogs, with smears of blood across their bones, glared aggressively at the players, but did not dare approach the mine's exit.
"The blood must be from the collisions during the stampede," Danemy said. "It must have been havoc. Probably most of them gave up by now."
After a brief stand-off, the dogs walked calmly back into the mines. Their legs clanked tiredly.
However, one enemy did not retreat. It hurtled towards Akshel as he made his way out of the mines.
Crucis glanced at this quick-moving shape. It was a headless chicken, and it flapped its wings aimlessly as it charged.
He quickly intercepted its run with a [Lunge], and it impaled itself on his sword. As the rest of the group fell in with harsh strikes, the chicken soon fell to the ground, dead. Its feathers had fallen away, leaving only its dry bones lying on the ground.
"Did anyone hear that thing cluck as it died?" Danemy said, bemused.
"Yes," DicingDevil said. "How strange. It didn't have a head, after all."
"Chickens are weird," Crucis said, then paused for a moment. "Anyway, what's the awful racket out here?"
Chapter 94: SO MUCH ICrucis caught up with the other Assassins in a long, narrow cave passage which occasionally plummeted downwards.The pieces of Kaxil Pyrite Ore had been easy to find, since they were seemingly all at the positions marked with the crossed-swords symbol on John Hazlitt's map. The four players had split up and easily gathered seven of the eight pieces of ore required. However, the last of these symbols was deep in the mines, close to the 'Lost Man's Resting Place,' and they met here to take this dicey journey.As Crucis reached the end of this long passageway, keeping his left hand on the black stone wall to steady himself as the passage sloped unevenly downwards, he saw that Danemy had stopped and seemed to be looking through a large chink in the right wall. Walking over to the right, he saw that the thick wall had about six jagged holes in it, each around the size of a hand. A large chamber could be seen through these, appearing like a mosaic through the array of cracks.In this chamber, there was a large, distant pit filled with rotting bodies, some with mining tools still strapped to them. Crucis estimated about 30 to 40 corpses. There was a faint, red mist draping the pit, and some of the bodies had long tracts of black, burnt skin.The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n."This must be some of the other miners which John killed," DicingDevil said, as he took in the scene."Yes. Well, at least now we know where the bodies are buried," Crucis replied contently."This chamber must be fairly deep in the mines, we're getting close.""That's a lot of bodies," Akshel remarked. "John wasn't kidding about going to war in the mines.""Yep," Danemy said. "And what's that shape drifting across the walls? It looks like a large, black snake?"The group looked in the direction that Danemy was facing, and saw a sinister, dark-brown shape comfortably slithering between small niches in the pit's left wall. In this dim light, it almost looked black."That's brown, I think," Crucis said. "But it's hard to tell in this light. Its nametag says Spotted Brown Snake.""So it does. And level 450! That would be painful. I guess the deeper parts of the mine are basically off-limits, then.""It's alright, we just need to pick up the pyrite and scram," DicingDevil said. "Since you have the map, how close are we to the sword symbol?""Um, it's only a few more minutes, I'd guess? A long, winding passage to the left from here, then a ladder wait, the ladders down here are mostly broken. So, then, the long passage to the left, then turning right, then a steep downwards slope back towards the end of that first passage now on the bottom end of the ladder. After that, just a few quick turns and we'll be near the Lost Man's Resting Place.""Got it. Let's go."The group set off, and found themselves in a long, dusty leftwards passage which looked like a zoomed-in snake's burrow. On the way, they stepped over the corpses of eight players which they found littering the path. Each took turns in looting these corpses, and Crucis was pleased to find some high-quality blacksmithing tools and a small collection of valuable Young Kaxil Deer Pelt in the corpses which he inspected.Since the settlement was seemingly known to a few players by now, as a place to gather crafting materials, it wasn't that surprising that a few people had found their way into the mines, possibly taking the pyrite quest.After five minutes, they had reached the hallway leading to the Lost Man's Resting Place. This was where the final crossed-swords symbol was drawn.The passage leading to the Lost Man's Resting Place was long and filled with a faint, red mist that crawled along the ground. Its roof was high, and, along with the dry ice-like mist, made the passage look almost like a majestic cathdral hallway in a film.As the group proceeded cautiously down this dark hallway, they saw that this passage led to a short, smaller tunnel, that formed an entryway to the large chamber known as the Lost Man's Resting Place. A few corpses lined the ground beneath them, both players and NPCs, but none had any possessions remaining.Reaching past the halfway point of the passage, Crucis stumbled over a corpse laid horizontally across the passage. It had seemingly had its arms and legs stretched until they hung apart from each end of the body, like on a rack. As he leaned against a wall to keep his balance, he saw that the corpse was carrying a letter.He picked this up, and began to read, as the rest of the group clustered around.Theo Mistril,An unexpected guest! I regret that I was not able to roll out a carpet in your honour. You must forgive the indignity, and I will make amends for it in due course.I would have prepared further, knowing that you take an interest in matters around this location, but I had expected you to still be exhausted after recent events.After a few seconds, Danemy jolted forwards, seeing something shine beneath a pile of dust on the right side of the passage.However, he stopped in his tracks as he heard the loud, threatening sound of a snake's hiss coming from just in front of him. As he looked up, he saw that two, bright red orbs - like eyes - had appeared on the wall above the entry to the Lost Man's Resting Place. A loud, low-pitched hissing sound resounded through the entryway, and the walls around him seemed to shake slightly.He darted for the Kaxil Pyrite Ore, and grabbed it, then backtracked quickly away.The snake eyes also faded, leaving silence for a few seconds. Soon, Crucis overheard two faint, whispering voices from inside the Lost Man's Resting Place."The hounds approach... flee... the howls...""The stampede...""Who dares... who dares?""Misery's... cloak... cloak..."The faint sound of scratching emerged from the direction of the Lost Man's Resting Place, and soon became clearly the metallic scrape of claws scraping the hard stone walls."These must be the children of Dravaistaya," DicingDevil said. "Well, let's not stick around."He took the map from Danemy, and guided the group as they fled through mazy tunnels towards the entrance.After a few minutes, while trying to climb a steep passage, they were surprised to hear a loud noise scrambling across the roof behind them. Looking back, Crucis saw a skeletal humanoid figure crawling effortlessly across the roof. Its nametag said Undead Crawler, and it was level 70.As it lunged out a long arm to grab him, he used an agile Slash at its hand to deflect it. Danemy grabbed onto the creature and leapt up until he had one foot on the roof, then stabbed and kicked violently at its hands and legs until it fell to the ground. Crucis and Akshel struck hard against one of its legs, which began to crack heavily. It seemed unable to get up.It was down to about 68% HP. However, the loud patter of pawsteps came out from behind it, as a stampede of large hounds tried to navigate these steep passages. One howled loudly."Leave it. We aren't sticking around, no?" Crucis said, stepping hastily away from the Crawler's reaching arms."Sure, let's go. By the time we kill it, the rest will catch up with us," DicingDevil said, using his hands to climb up a steep drop in the passage. "This one seemingly caught up faster because it was climbing the roof. The rest of the skeletons were stampeding along the ground, they seemingly got in each other's way in the steep, narrow tunnels."They ran off through the mines again, until after a few minutes they saw the light of the mine's entryway. As the players escaped towards it, a few loud growls were heard from a short distance behind them. A small group of skeletal wild dogs, with smears of blood across their bones, glared aggressively at the players, but did not dare approach the mine's exit."The blood must be from the collisions during the stampede," Danemy said. "It must have been havoc. Probably most of them gave up by now."After a brief stand-off, the dogs walked calmly back into the mines. Their legs clanked tiredly.However, one enemy did not retreat. It hurtled towards Akshel as he made his way out of the mines.Crucis glanced at this quick-moving shape. It was a headless chicken, and it flapped its wings aimlessly as it charged.He quickly intercepted its run with a Lunge, and it impaled itself on his sword. As the rest of the group fell in with harsh strikes, the chicken soon fell to the ground, dead. Its feathers had fallen away, leaving only its dry bones lying on the ground."Did anyone hear that thing cluck as it died?" Danemy said, bemused."Yes," DicingDevil said. "How strange. It didn't have a head, after all.""Chickens are weird," Crucis said, then paused for a moment. "Anyway, what's the awful racket out here?"
