With the business of PvP out of the way from our surprise guests, it was time to get back on the road and make our way towards the next instance. First clear bonuses were nothing to sneeze at, and I was sure as hell not going to let them get away from me. At this point, I refused to look at my full map and stuck with glances at my mini map in order to track our progress. Kayla and Archie knew to avoid leaking the location of the second dungeon, but there was an indicator on the mini map to guide us in the proper direction at the least.

As we walked, I let my friends chat and keep an eye out for anything worthwhile as I went over my own stats and skills. My character was fleshing out nicely with the bonus strength I was getting from gear and titles. I was closing in on 100 strength and agility, the main stats I was focusing on with my goal of being a massive physical damage dealer that attacked faster than my opponents could properly react. With as much damage I could deal, I needed to focus on what my next Fairy would be. Level 25 wasn’t that far out of reach at this point, what with another first clear boost coming up let alone farming the hell out of the dungeon over and over to speed level.

My options for a second Contract was wide open in all reality, but some things would work much better than others if broken down properly. My main goal was damage and survival, with no emphasis on dealing extra magic damage from extreme range in my future. I was building a pure melee berserker type with Aly giving me the gap closing option with Temporal Step, so my primary choice should be some kind of damage boosting Fairy. I could pick an elemental type to add extra magic damage to my physical attacks, with the extra bonus of getting a ranged attack as a back-up, but that wasn’t really my style with Aly sucking up so much mana as it was. No, my best choice would be to figure out just what I wanted my Fairy to have dominion over that would give me the best advantage.

I had the time and speed aspect down, Aly giving me several good options that made my style that much more effective, so maybe something along the lines of bleeding… Hmmm, maybe even a Fairy with control over metal that could strengthen my weapons and armor even. Again, the choices were wide open as to what would serve me best. I would have to talk with Archie outside of the game about where I should head exactly with my choice, as he would be able to run down all of the numbers and help me make the right decision.

“Hey, what’s going on there?” The feminine voice of Kayla drew me out of my musings as I noticed on my mini map that we were finally approaching the town between the two instances. “Is that… Is that a troll?” She squinted her eyes while looking farther down the road, bringing my own focus towards the area she was watching.

It was quite a way off yet, but the fact that something large was attacking a group of people was quite obvious. The road we were walking along was fairly straight and level with trees lining the wide avenue on either side, the view ahead and behind us was clear. “Looks like we should pick up the speed and get a better look before this ends. If that is a pack of NPCs from the town, then we should help them out and reap any extra rewards that could be had.” I grinned at my friends and took off in a straight sprint, holding nothing back and using my agility score to its full potential. Really, it was quite a fun experience to run that fast. Like a shot from a gun I launched forward at max speed, the trees flashing by rapidly as I ran. A glance back showed me Archie not too far behind me, his own high agility granting him a movement speed nearly on par with my own.

Looking back ahead of me showed that I was rapidly closing in on the action just outside of the town, the sounds of combat reaching me now. Kayla was right, it was a troll that was being attacked by a pack of town guards, or maybe it was a group of guards being attacked by a troll… Semantics. The battle was quite lopsided though as the troll was regenerating health almost as fast as it was taking it. Well, can’t let that keep going on or it would wipe out the guards in the end. Judging the distance as well as I could, I triggered Temporal Step to close the distance that much faster. With the world around me frozen, I got a good look at the situation without limbs and weapons flailing around. What I saw wasn’t good for the guards though… Most of the six NPCs were missing half of their health while the troll was still mostly full.

My skill ended while I was still a short distance away, but that just gave me time to ready my scythe and sweep it around with a powerful charging strike. I nearly stopped moving when the health of the troll dropped by half just from the one strike! To the troll’s credit, in the bare moment I gaped at the result of my attack, its health already started to climb once more. Setting my grip, I settled into my normal flurry of attacks at speed and activated True Haste on top of it for the added boost. The health bar began to drop rapidly, though the damage wasn’t nearly as great as my first attack. I would have to check the logs after the fight, but that must have been a major crit to have wiped out that much HP in one go.

The troll regenerated 5% HP per second, but I was easily able to outpace that rate and when Archie made it to my side and started in with his own attacks, the monster fell easily. Between two well geared damage dealers left to do their job, the beast had no chance even with a massive regen rate. Kayla was just running up to us by the time the battle was over, her movement speed much lower than mine and Archie’s.

I looked around at the town guards, eyeing their HP levels before spotting the one who was marked as a sergeant. “Greetings Sergeant. Glad to see we could make it in time before any of your men got too roughed up.” I smiled at the NPC, this whole situation smelling like a perfect quest opportunity. All I needed to do was talk well and the guards should offer up some task or another that would help the town and give us some good rewards.

The tall man ran a hand across his brow to brush away a sheen of sweat, his bearded face looking me over critically. “Aye, you did indeed make a big difference. Trolls are nasty creatures.” He kicked the troll’s corpse followed up by spitting on the slain enemy in hatred. “These buggers ‘ave been harassing us for a while now and we’ve only a vague idea of where they are coming from.” It was surprising that the troll didn’t despawn after it died, but I figured it was a quest mob and was coded to remain for storyline purposes. “Anyway, I s’pose you folks want to enter the town now and go about your business, eh?” At our words of affirmation, he nodded his head. “Right then, go on. Swing by the headman’s house ‘fore you leave, I will ‘ave a guard fill him in on what ya did for us.”

“Sure thing, will do that. Thanks and good luck Sergeant.” I waved at him then rounded the stinking corpse to enter the town. The battle had been fought a mere twenty feet outside of the pathetic excuse for a town wall. Said barrier was merely a large number of roughly hewn stakes driven into the ground with a patchwork scaffolding built on the inner side of the wall to fend off any attackers. In all, the thing would probably not even hold up to a full minute of me pounding on it. Good thing this was only a stepping stone town in the large scheme of things.

Our first stop in town was a merchant to offload all of our drops both from the dungeon and my gains from the group of PKers. Their loot was average quality at best, nothing standing out to me in the end as they didn’t even have any jewelry on them. That wasn’t too out of the ordinary however, as most jewelry was rated for higher level players. I was lucky with my gains thus far getting what I did as quest rewards and such. I checked out the item list of what the merchant had for sale, but there was nothing worthwhile in the stock and left with my new pile of gold. In all, I was feeling rather rich in the game if I added in the gold Archie and Kayla owed me. After all was said and done, there was a total of 148 gold to my name at the moment. That gave me high hopes of buying a set of plate armor as soon as I find a good set, at least if we didn’t find drops of it in the next instance.

Selling bender done and out of the way, we headed over to the Headman’s place in order to see what exactly we were going to gain from saving the guards. The structure before me was in decent repair, made from stone unlike the wooden buildings mostly dominating the town, and had a second story on it compared to all of the other buildings which were single story. The main drawback I saw to it was the garish bright green pain coating the outer walls. At least it made the building stand out… Yeah, the less said about that the better in all actuality. Such terrible design features for some reason made me quite… Aggravated. Call it a terrible personality quirk, but such things truly drove me nuts.

Pushing aside my complete distaste for the building as a whole, I approached and knocked on the wooden door that was the front entrance. A male voice reverberated through the door with an, “I’m coming!” A mere few seconds later, the equally ugly green door opened up to reveal a large barrel chested man with a thick black beard and not a single hair on the top of his head. He appeared older, but not any later than his late 40’s or so if I was to judge. “Ah, the heroes of Rudnan!” His deep voice was loud and powerful, the tone of his words implying he was used to being obeyed without question as he stepped back and motioned us in. “Paul told me how you helped him and his boys out with the troll that attacked the walls. You have my utmost thanks for that little feat, by the way!”

I put two and two together and figured Paul was the Sergeant we dealt with outside of the gates and nodded my head with a smile. “Yes, we did our best to help out the soldiers in need. I am Calamity, and these are Zexceed and Serena.” I took a seat when the headman offered such, settling in on a soft and comfortable couch. “But tell me, from what I gathered these trolls appear fairly often. Where are they all coming from?” Like hell I was going to let this kind of side quest get away from me. Saving a town from constant attack was the kind of thing that nets a player more fame, and I was oh so close to a thousand already! The stat wasn’t explained much for this game, but judging from what I had seen of it and taking ideas from previous experience told me I would be able to access better quests with a higher fame rank. In any case, it was part of the main stat page, so it was guaranteed to be important at the least.

“Ah, Paul was speaking too freely again. He was not wrong, however.” The older man settled into an arm chair and sighed, a hand rubbing over his face. “We have been plagued by these monsters for some time now, and despite sending out our soldiers to try and deal with the issue we have no solution. Every time our men get close to where these things are coming from, a dozen or so trolls pop up and run them off. We are a small settlement here, not a lot of spare men we can just throw away in order to end this threat, but something must be done.” He paused his words, eyeing our group carefully. “But, you lot seemed to have dealt with the troll at the gates easily enough just by yourselves. Maybe, just maybe, I can persuade you three to take a look at our problem here and do what you can? The exact cause and location are beyond my knowledge, but we do have a starting grounds on where to look at the least.”

Quest Received!

Defending Rudnan

The small town of Rudnan has been plagued by the threat of trolls in recent times. The headman has asked you to look into the source of these troubles and to do what you can to alleviate the town’s woes. Speak more with the headman for further details regarding the information previously collected.

Rewards: variable

Variable rewards from a quest like this? What the hell is the AI thinking? There aren’t even any definitions as to what needs to be done to get the best rewards! At least in my previous quests I had a set outline of what was required to complete the quest fully and get the best benefits. Bah… No helping it now, I supposed. I dismissed the notification and focused back on the man who gave me the quest in the first place. “Of course. My friends and I will do what we can for the town. First, though… Please tell us what you have found out so far. Any information you have that can help will be of great use.”

Clapping his hands together, the headman grinned in pleasure and nodded at us. “Of course!” He settled back in his chair and got comfortable, a weight seeming to lift off his shoulders after passing off the task to us. “We have found that the trolls are approaching from the east. Our scouts are only able to make it about three miles into the forest there before the bogs and trolls become too numerous to advance further. We are thinking that those bogs are the spawning grounds of these beasts and they are trying to expand their area of influence to make way for more of their numbers.” He stopped speaking and snapped his fingers, a thought seeming to come to him as he sat up a bit once more. “Ah yes! I nearly forgot! Our local alchemist has developed a poison to use against the trolls just recently that will slow the regeneration rate of the trolls greatly. We have very limited numbers of this substance, but I am sure we can spare some for you folks in order to clear out this threat. Please, stop by Alton’s shop and tell him I said to give you a few doses for your adventures.”

Kayla grinned at the idea of having an extra edge on the trolls when we faced them. “That will be perfect, thank you! Have you been able to get around the bogs by circling about the long way?” It was a good idea, and honestly I was planning on asking it myself if she hadn’t beaten me to the punch.

“No, we have not bothered. To circle around would be a trip of over a week in order to gather that information.” The old man sighed and shrugged his shoulders in apology. “We cannot afford to send off a scout that far away with so little a chance of success for our forces. As I said, we are not so numerous that we can throw lives away. I am sorry we cannot offer you any more assistance than this, but we are a small town after all. Any other questions before I need to get back to work, Outlanders?”

I glanced to the others, but they just shook their heads and I waved off the headman. “No, I think we will be able to manage alright as things stand. Thank you for your time.” Really, I was more than happy with how things were going. We got a decent quest that appeared to be in the direction we were heading anyway, so we would be able to knock it out on our journey to clear out the next instance. Extra rewards were never something I was able to say no to. After exiting the headman’s house, we made our way to the aforementioned alchemist shop and picked up our batches of wounding poison. It was pretty basic stuff, reducing all natural regeneration of the poisoned target by 75% for 30 minutes, useless in most situations but perfect for what we were going up against next. In all, we got four vials each of the poison and each of us slipped a pair of vials into our quick access slots. Those vials would be more than effective in taking out the trolls quickly.

With all of our preparations done, we made our way out of the village and off towards the woods in the direction of the map marker. Right after leaving the ramshackle gates, I pulled open my combat logs and cycled through to find that massive crit I had scored on the troll. Upon finding the correct spot, I blinked and whistled softly at the damage I caused. Damage Dealt: 1134 (94 weapon damage + 67.5 Str modifier + 31.5 Mastery + 22.05 Blooded Tactician + 15.75 Soul Reaper bonus X 5 massive crit). That was just insane! In one strike, I did enough damage to kill my own character even factoring in the armor I had if it were a PvP setting! Thankfully, PvE combat didn’t account for natural armor on mobs, and only added in defenses based on what equipment a mob would be wearing. Since the troll was dressed in what amounted to a loincloth, that meant zero armor to soften the blow I dealt to it.

I tapped an icon on the screen to make it visible to other players and turned so that Archie could see the line in my logs. “Ha! Check this one out. My highest damage hit yet I think.” He came over to look, all three Fairies floating over to see the odd screen floating in the air and read the lines.

Archie let out a low whistle comparable to my own at the text and shook his head. “Dude, that is a BS hit right there… Whatever hacks you are using, I want them.” He grinned at me, knowing there was no way in hell I was able to be using any kind of hacking system in this game. There was no way to code together something that sophisticated in the time since the game went live on hardware that was well beyond anything seen before.

Celeste and Aly both sniffed in unison as they crossed arms over their chests, noses turned up in evident disdain as Celeste spoke up. “Oh please… I have seen Serena take bigger hits from bosses and shrug them off like they were nothing.” She turned towards me and poked a finger into the tip of my nose. “You want to impress us? Deal a significant portion of damage to her and then come back to gloat!”

All three females fell into laughter at the tiny Fairy’s words, leaving Archie, Fallon and myself staring at each other. “You know…” Archie started, eyes darting to the women who were still giggling, “Even though the numbers are technically equal here when it comes to males versus females, I still feel like we are outnumbered.”

I snorted a laugh at my friend and clapped him on the shoulder. “Ain’t that the truth! Hell, we could have five more guys here and still feel that way!” I shot another glare at the women and picked up the pace of our travel a bit, dragging Archie along with me. “Some things will never change. Like letting us have our pride, for example.”

Now it was Kayla’s turn to let out a snort as she hurried to catch up, Fairies floating over her shoulders. “Yeah right. Wouldn’t that imply having something to be proud about in the first place?” She smirked at me, causing a laugh from all of us at the ribbing. The good-natured teasing was always one of the best things about gaming with my friends, and none of it was really said in seriousness when it came to making fun of one another.

“Touché! Your words strike true and to the quick as usual, my beautiful companion.” I grinned and made a mock bow to her, to which I received a swift kick to my shin in return.

“Don’t give me that bullshit. We both know you carry enough pride in that inflated head of yours to afford losing a bit of it.” She whirled around and poked a finger into Archie’s chest with an evil smile as he chuckled. “And don’t think I forgot about you there Zex. Just remember who knows all of your darkest secrets when it comes to the women in your life. I am sure some of our faithful viewers would love to hear some horror stories.”

A panicked look came over his face at that threat, and his hands shot up to wave back and forth. “No, no! I am good. Don’t need to air that dirty laundry out and about for all the world to see.” He grinned and slipped an arm around Kayla’s shoulders as we walked. “Besides, I can always fill Calamity and the world in on some of your escapades in revenge! It was a two-way street for all of these years, don’t forget!” He gave a dark laugh for a second, then yelped in pain as a booted foot crashed down onto his toes.

“I swear to all that is holy, if you even so much as whisper anything about what I have told you I will send you for respawn for the remainder of your time in this game!” Her face held a glare that could freeze flames, while at the same time her cheeks burned a bright red knowing he could indeed spill some of her deepest embarrassing secrets.

I laughed at the pair, knowing neither of them would actually ever breathe a word about what they had shared between themselves over the years. I even had a few of those stories about both of them myself, some I was sure were even told only to me. Once more it came down to the fact that I would never betray their trust and share those stories though. “Alright children, behave and play nice. We are coming up on the waypoint marker soon and need to get serious.” I glanced at my UI and noted the time. We had a little over two hours before hitting the five hour marker and I wanted to get this first dungeon clear out of the way tonight. We had aired our location way too much for my comfort levels, and the last thing I wanted was for some scrubs to swoop in and take our first clear bonus. I was just about to continue speaking when a chime sounded and a system message popped up in my view.

Attention All Players!

At 1:00 AM Server time, the game will institute a forced log out for any players still within the game in order to apply the first patch. A few changes are coming to Realm of Infinity with this update, all of which can be found on the official forums, with the most prominent being the first Server Dungeon Reset! Our AIs will randomly select several already explored dungeons and remove them from the game in order to open up more fresh experiences for the players. Only instances without quests attached to them will ever be part of this initiative, so do not fret if you have an active quest line tied to an existing dungeon as it will be unaffected. Please see the Forums for more information.

From all the staff at Dumadine Technology,

Thanks for playing!

I dismissed the message, and noticed an alert near the clock on my UI indicating the system shutdown. Nifty bit, that. Should make things a lot easier to time properly if the game gave this level of notification at the very least. We had plenty of time to clear the dungeon before the update time, and hopefully neither of the two instances we knew about would be moved. It would suck to have our planned grinding locations taken away so soon after discovery, but I hoped the system would recognize that these two dungeons were still too freshly opened to be replaced just yet.

As if sensing my worries, Kayla huffed and walked past me towards the waypoint marker. “Stop fretting over what may or may not happen guys. They might just be putting this in place now for future use seeing as there are only about eight instances opened up at the moment from all I have gathered. People are finding them quickly between yesterday and today, and we are not the only ones with the Dungeon Raider skill.” She glanced back at me and Archie, a smile curling the corners of her mouth. “Let’s take care of this problem first, then deal with what comes tomorrow!”

Archie and I shared a look then we each chuckled lightly, our feet carrying us forward again. My friend shrugged and chimed in as he pulled ahead of me slightly. “Hard to argue with a beautiful woman who keeps the baddies off of my ass!” That did the job of making all of us laugh as we proceeded further into the woods, the scenery slowly changing as the trees here looked like they were dying or already dead. Overall the feeling was turning into quite the creepy place. Then the stench hit us as the wind shifted to blow lightly into our faces. Fetid smells of rotting foliage and dank waters washed over us just in time to see the landscape change from a mere forest to that of a bog with strips of land running just above the water’s surface, trees hanging thick with strange vines growing right up out of the water itself.

All of us stopped to take in the view of the area, the mini map of my UI showing we were at the waypoint marker for the trolls quest, the dungeon marker showing we still had a bit more land to cover though. Islands dotted the waters connected by raised paths of solid ground, some of those paths obviously ending in dead ends to make crossing this area a bit of a maze. Trolls apparently called this area home as they were interspersed across the land bridges and islands everywhere we could see.

I pulled my scythe off my shoulder and grinned at the other two. “Well, at least the scenery is different from what we have dealt with thus far! I will take what blessings I can out of this situation.” Looking ahead again, it seemed like the land bridges were wide enough for two people to walk side by side in most places, some parts wider or smaller. “I think our best bet would be to push those trolls on the narrow parts back to an island so we can surround them and do our thing. If this is like other games, I would suggest avoiding the water as much as possible. Probably some nasty things hiding in there to make a meal out of anyone dumb enough to take a dip.”

Archie grinned and buffed us up with his armor spell, then created his spiked knuckles out of moonlight before applying the poison to them. “Right then, let’s get this party started! I want to see what kind of dungeon we will be delving into next!” Despite his apparent haste, he still noticeably waited for Kayla to take the lead as she hefted her shield in her right hand, axe ready in the left. When she passed him, Kayla rolled her eyes in his direction. “What? I just prefer the sight of your ass to that of the bog here!”

That brought Kayla up short, her body starting to spin around to put the hurt to Archie when I intervened and stepped between the two. “Yes yes, we get it. Zex is an ass and your maidenly honor has been impugned. Beat each other up later after we have done what we came here for.” That seemed to mollify Kayla for a moment, right up until I had to put in one final comment. “Although I do have to say the view is indeed much better from this position when compared to the surroundings.”

“Men!” Kayla’s exasperated voice was the only response as Archie and I laughed at her expense, the woman marching forward onto one of the paths heading towards the islands. As if to remind us of her capability, she lifted her shield and bashed one troll hard enough to send it stumbling backwards onto the first island. She followed it up with a heavy chop from her axe, the poison on the blade making an icon pop up next to its name to indicate that its regen was slowed considerably. With a chuckle, I dodged around to the rear of the troll and started slicing into it with my own weapon as Archie took up position at the creature’s side to deliver sharp punches to the exposed portions of the torso.

With the concentrated attacks of the three of us, the mob fell quickly with little in the way of damage done to our lady tank. As soon as it fell, I noticed a new problem… As if sensing us here in their home turf, a large number of trolls began making their lumbering way towards us from all around. “Well shit… It appears as if dinner has arrived and we are the main course. Zex, crunch the mental numbers quick. Stay here and fight them off at an island or make a break for the dungeon and only deal with the ones we can’t avoid?”

Reaching up with one hand to adjust his non-existent glasses, Archie glanced about quickly in thought. “Staying here would actually be the worst idea… It takes us too long to deal with one troll to tangle with being surrounded by them on an island. It would actually be safer to find a narrow strip of land bridge so they can only come at us in singles or pairs at most.” He shot a look to the cloudy waters all around and shivered slightly. “But at the same time, we run the risk of falling into the bog and finding out just how deep it is.”

I followed his gaze and nodded, shadows of something nasty under the water causing ripples to spread out from the beast just under the surface. “Right, we run for it. Serena, you get the lead as usual. Try and go for bashing attacks to send them into the water instead of direct confrontation. For now at least…” One look around to make sure my friends were ready, and I slapped Kayla’s shoulder. “Go!” At my word, she darted forward onto the path leading to the next island in our way. I followed right behind her, Archie on my heels as we ran. There was only one troll in the way on the narrow trail, and a hard swing of Kayla’s shield sent the mob stumbling to the side and into the water. I watched in dark fascination as the troll flailed and struggled, those large dark shadows under the water converging on the creature and dragging it under in an instant, only bubbles and turbulence indicating it was ever there.

When we made the next island, Archie pointed off slightly to the right. “There! Keep going and don’t slow down. They are not far behind us!” On the trail he pointed to, there was two more trolls steadily making their way towards us. That didn’t stop Kayla from following the orders though, and she adjusted her run to collide with the newest obstacles. The shield trick worked again on the first one to similar end, but the second troll was apparently smarter and braced himself for the hit and didn’t take a dive into the bog. What the mob didn’t expect, and honestly neither did I, was Archie jumping up and walking over our shoulders to kick the troll in the side of the head hard enough to send it tumbling into the water on the other side of the first one. Hey, whatever solution works really. He jumped down between myself and Kayla and gave her a push forward to keep us moving. “This is fun! Are we there yet?”

I had to laugh at him and shake my head as we moved ahead, bashing trolls out of our way and dealing with the couple we couldn’t avoid on the islands. The monsters fell to our attacks quick enough once we got the poison into them, but every time we were delayed the remaining trolls moved ever closer. I was sure our exp gain was severely hindered with these tactics, but being surrounded by dozens of trolls would spell our deaths out here so it was a trade-off I was willing to live with. Live being the operative word there… The last thing I wanted was to go into a new dungeon with debuffs from death and an exp penalty to overcome. Once we finished the instance I would be more than happy to spend a couple hours tearing into the rather large number of trolls living here, but that had to wait for now.

From my position at the rear of our train I didn’t notice our goal approaching ahead of us, my eyes keeping our rear covered in case any of our new friends decided to crawl up our asses. That would have been a bad kind of surprise and I had to deal with a couple such encounters, either killing them or knocking them into the water to the sides. Thus when I collided into Archie’s back, I cursed and actually looked ahead of us and blinked. How I missed coming up on this structure I have no idea, but the large dilapidated castle before me was surely the instance we needed to clear out. Rather impressive in size, though the location of the structure had something to be desired, the castle had those odd vines crawling up the sides of the stone walls dark with grime and age. Situated on a massive island in the middle of the bog, we had come up to the castle slightly off center and needed to walk along the walls for a short distance in order to find the portal into the instance. With a host of trolls dogging our tails, the three of us leapt through the portal and phased into the instance itself, a message box popping up before our eyes.

Congratulations!

You have found an unexplored instance!

Rewards for being the first players to clear this dungeon have been improved until the final boss has been killed or the instance is reset. Should you die while in the instance, you will be respawned at the entrance after half the appropriate amount of time. Good luck!