“Plaza’s empty,” Guss said as they came into sight of the centre of Donerkal.

“Cowen said that Kuminos would take a couple of months to come back,” Ira replied.

“As if we would have fought it on our own. I’d love us to get a few more Artefacts and maybe a slightly better Core, but no way we’ll do it,” Jonas said.

“At least we already got something yesterday,” Laura added, pointing up toward her head. She now sported a near identical-looking version of Guss’ own headgear.

Spotted-Leather Coif

Head

Exceptional equipment

Requires: Level 84

Provides: +33 defence rating, STR+10, FOR+8, WIS+7

“Too bad it was the same Thunder Bovine guardian we did last time. No new completion notification,” Ira complained.

“Bah. The zone is not that large, and there should be more new guardians around. And I want my revenge on that Sentry Bovine once we find it,” Laura countered.

“I admit the prospect is slightly alluring,” Guss added in an exaggerated pedantic tone, prompting a snort from Jonas.

The three of them hadn’t forgotten the stampede that had ended their first run through the trunk zone. Being trampled to death by dozens of bovines was not a happy sensation.

“So, how do we find more guardians?”

“We try to cross the entirety of the zone. It’s small enough that you can go from border to Plaza in barely over a day if you don’t fight every Bovine on the way.”

“It’s still some good experience,” Jonathan noted.

“That’s a balancing act between levels and our mission,” Jonas noted.

Not that he disagreed. Jonathan and he were respectively the lowest and highest levels of the team currently, but they also both levelled the fastest since they were still pursuing their second Milestone, while the rest were on their way to the third.

“So? Getting enabled for the zones from here, and experience? Sounds good to me,” Ira insisted.

“Lead on,” Jonas replied with a smile, as Ira picked a random direction from the Plaza to explore the rolling hills of Donerkal.

Shadow Bovine

Level 103 elder

Health: 4793

Mind: 1652

Endurance: 1645

Aether: 4451

In Donerkal, the sun hovered at the zenith, and would not move at all. Despite this, the creature seemed to be at dusk or nearly so. Where the Legend had reflected unseen lights, this one felt like an opposite.

“For one moment, I thought this was another Legend,” Alton noted, shaking his head at the appearance.

“Definitively a simple elder. And the treasure agrees,” Jonathan confirmed, pointing the chest just behind the pacing upright bull.

Shadow Bovine

Elder Treasure

Exceptional weapon

Requires: Level 88

“Another exceptional? And a weapon? Nice,” Laura said.

“We haven’t seen anything but exceptional so far? Is that likely?” Guss asked.

“It’s not outside of the realm of pure chance, but that’s… what, four out of four in the trunk. Usually, we get at least a simple quality item by now.”

“My schoolteacher used to say luck is fickle and doesn’t remember your last dice,” Ira added.

“Strategy?” Jonathan asked, steering back the discussion to the important matter.

“My guess? Heavy aether user means weird attacks, not physical things. So, we just make sure nothing nearby interferes, then we see what it tries.”

“Last Wary Bovine. Let’s prod the bull,” Ira announced.

“Go!”

The bovine noticed almost immediately the rushing ringmail-clad figure, turning its horned head to the incoming Professional. Jonas waited to see what the guardian would open up with.

The shadow bovine waited until Ira reached it, then brought its hoof-like “hands” on the Careful Barrier, black smoke-like trails following.

Shadow Bovine shadow-rips for 76 physical damage (561 total defence rating).

To Jonas, the attack did not feel like anything special, for all its damage. But then, elders’ main attacks did a lot of hurt.

The rest of the team started to position themselves around the beast.

Shadow Bovine dims your inner fire. -10 to DEX/AGI/STR/STA/CON

“Keep doing that, you shitty bovine,” Ira reacted.

“We’re good; it’s only a single target, not everyone,” Laura announced.

Shadow bovine steps outside.

“What the hells?” Alton blurted as his knife stabbed into empty air where the bull humanoid had been standing.

Shadow Bovine shadow-rips for 109 physical damage (228 total defence rating).

Laura whipped around, facing the shadowed figure behind her as it finished ripping with his strange trailing smoke trails.

Ira immediately moved, slashing with his claymore as Laura moved aside, to let their main Barrier pick the critter’s attention again. But the bovine figure ignored Ira, crossing his front “hands” in another attack that dropped her physical potentials by the same 10 points. Then the figure breathed red-tinged smoke.

Shadow Bovine draws your inner fire. +10 to its potentials, +2% regeneration.

That was the first time Jonas had seen this attack. Strictly speaking, it might not be one… but the beast would see some serious benefits from the “stolen” Potentials. You needed a high rank in some skills to find out the specific values, but a level 100 elder could have anything from 100 to 250 in any given Potential.

“Balls, my penalties went from 10 to 12,” Laura blurted.

She threw a quick look at Guss, who shook his head, indicating he wouldn’t yet work on that penalty. With no ranks beyond his Core bonus on Mitigate Disease – which was the appropriate cure for that inner fire thing – he needed a lot of uses to do a significant counter.

Shadow bovine steps outside.

Everyone’s eyes immediately sought out the figure as it vanished from its current spot.

Shadow Bovine shadow-rips for 121 physical damage (160 total defence rating).

Jonas yelled as the twin lines of shadow raked across his back. He turned to face the bovine enemy who was now striking at him.

Shadow Bovine dims your inner fire. -10 to FOC/PRE/WIS/INT/FOR

Despite the loss of a significant percentage of his Intellect, Jonas unloaded an Everburn on the elder bovine as the melee fighters rushed to close the distance.

Once again, the bovine splendidly ignored the two Barriers who were both trying to intercept his attacks. He kept focused on Jonas, who saw another pair of slashes drop his health precipitously. Guss’ Increase Healing helped a tiny bit, but Jonas was dreading the damage. He simply did not have enough defence to mitigate the main part, unlike the team’s defenders.

Shadow Bovine draws your inner fire. +10 to its potentials, +2% regeneration.

Shadow bovine steps outside.

“Again. Cowshit!”

Alton whirled as the bovine hit him this time. And Jonas realized it was high time for a change in strategy.

“Pack up close everyone. We’re losing precious time every time it does that step-thing by repositioning.”

And another thing that worried Jonas slightly was the regeneration that stacked. Already, he could see that the bull’s health ticked slightly up, countering their attacks. There were some control skills that could be used to kill that kind of effect, but none at their tier. Besides, none of them had the right Profession sphere to learn any of those from an item.

Jonas dropped all of his ongoing damage effects once they bunched up and they started again.

Shadow bovine steps outside.

That was going to be a long fight.

“I’m tapped out on aether,” Guss warned.

Shadow Bovine shadow-rips for 166 physical damage (160 total defence rating).

The bovine was back on attacking Jonas, and his main attack was starting to do insane damage with all the “drawn inner fire”. Everyone in the team was dimmed now, meaning it drew benefits instead. Thankfully, they could switch position in seconds now, and the beast was also on its last legs. Hoofs. Whatever the proper name.

Shadow Bovine: 5405XP/6 contributors = 853XP.

You have completed Donerkal Shadow Bovine lair.

“No death. That was close,” Guss breathed in relief.

“Never felt more useless,” Ira sighed.

Horn-Hilted Dagger

One-Handed

Exceptional equipment

Requires: Level 88

Provides: 14 piercing damage (+15% FOC), INT+8, DEX+7, +113hp

“You were looking for a piece of new main hand equipment, Jonas?” Laura said, slightly smiling.

“I was starting to think that even the Faire couldn’t save me,” he replied.

Jonas looked at his old Focus Dagger. That one had a lot of history – a treasure from drunk badgers, at the bottom of the very first lair they ever found in the Labyrinth. Even if it wasn’t the first completed lair… it did carry some memories.

He would figure out if he wanted to put it at the trade fair later. If he couldn’t find any caster weapon over months… maybe some aspiring aether user would really appreciate the thing. Or keep it anyway.

“One more guardian, and we’re good for every Gate, including the one to tier three,” Ira noted.

“The loot is good, though. We’ll see, but we shouldn’t stay that long in the trunk. We have a mission after all,” Jonas replied.

“Plan?” Ira asked.

“We check the two zones we know nothing about, as the Duke suggested. Krilziar and Parsming. And then, we go down to tier one, and we do it for the four zones there.”

“Then it’s time for some bull hunting,” he replied.

The team reached the Gate as they started to feel the end of the “day”. Jonas hoped that their destination would have some normal night because sleeping with a cover over his head didn’t help. He already had problems sleeping often, and eternal sunlight didn’t help. Even if it didn’t really reflect on his descriptor, he still felt tiredness.

“Did not find that Sentry again, but the other two were good loot,” Guss commented.

“Six out of six,” Laura added, alluding to the loot quality.

Jonas wasn’t about to correct them on the topic of chances. Besides, a part of him wanted to think it was something real, and the trunk was a source of better gear than otherwise. Even if it was small.

Transit: Donerkal - Krilziar

Integrity: 100%

Active

Stability: 100%

“Time to see what it looks like from the other side,” Ira said.

The six entered the Gate.