proofread by: Daylius and Vikingstad

"Good afternoon everybody. My name is Shiv and I am here to address the remaining players on the quest given by the King. As you all know, five days have passed since the quest was given by the king, but we are yet to make any progress. The number of candidates has decreased from one hundred to just eleven. Of these eleven, three are from my party. And so i am taking this opportunity to ask the remaining eight to cooperate with us to slay the beast"

There were murmurings everywhere around the fountain. Both NPCs and players were making a fuss about the sudden announcement.

The NPCS were scared as they had expected the almighty and immortal travelers to easily exterminate the threat that had been running amok in the capital. But now a man just declared that only eleven of the chosen hundred remained. They were at the verge of panic when Shiv continued to speak.

"It is impossible to slay the beast individually, for the beast is stronger than you think."

"How do you know whether it is strong or not?" Someone from the crowd threw a question at Shiv.

"Because I have fought with a beast similar to the one in this capital. But compared to the one here, the beast i slayed can only be considered as a baby."

This remark from Shiv earned the ears of plenty of people, some of the candidates were hiding themselves and listening to Shiv.

"What proof do you have?" Another questioned.

"My friend here was the first to see the beast or should I say, the only one who escaped the beast. This man has seen the beast with his eyes and has also felt the power the beast possessed. Now to testify that I have seen the beast" Shiv stopped speaking and then gestured the weaponsmith Golof to hand over the scales and the dagger that Golof had. Shiv then raised his hands so that all that had gathered could see the two items.

"This black thing is a scale of the beast i slayed and the dagger was made by Golof using these scales. Golof who gave you these scales and when was it given?"

"You gave it to me, my friend. Those are some real beauties. I can't seem to get enough of them. So dazzling and strong. You gave them five days ago, asking me to make you some daggers and a bow with them"

When Golof finished speaking there was once again murmuring among the audience.

"Now to the person who escaped. Vrolis, do you find this scale I have in my hand familiar?"

"Yes I do. They look similar to the scales of the beast that attacked me. But the scales seemed much darker and longer than the scales you possess"

"So now you have proof which you are free to believe. If any of you wish to team up with us, please gather here tomorrow by this time. Thank you" Shiv then walked away leaving the group that gathered along with the rest of his party. Golof followed Shiv as he had matters to discuss with him.

“Shiv, as you requested I have finished the work on four daggers, of which the twin blades were already delivered. Here are the two daggers that I have made. As for the bow and the six remaining daggers I will deliver them in another ten days. The special weapon you have asked will be finished in a couple of hours or so.”

“Thanks Golof! You were a great help. I will come and receive the special weapon at night”

“You did pay me well so no worries. Come visit me after you succeed in slaying the beast. Bye”

After Golof had separated from them, Kate asked Shiv

“Shiv, why did you not tell them that Vrolis was an assassin?”

“You want me to disclose details about our party to complete strangers? For now they only need to know about me, you and Agon. Vrolis and Grohl are special units which will be hidden from the rest, that is if there is someone willing to cooperate with us”

“Why hide it from people who will cooperate?”

“To make sure that any surprise attack from those new partners on us will fail.”

“Surprise attack?”

“Kate, you are such an idiot. Listen, right now there are eleven who have the right to hunt the beast. Say the eleven are divided into groups of three, four and four. Now assume that any one of the groups decides to join us. That means the eleven are divided into groups of seven and four. Say once we form a group, the other four, after gathering all the information about the group decides to kill us, then? ”

“Oh” Kate exclaimed.

“It may also be possible that the remaining eight candidates are of the same group and to infiltrate us they give an act as being enemies or something. There is no way we can trust them and so Vrolis who is a high level assassin can guard us all the time from the shadows and Grohl can heal us or curse them if it is deemed as necessary. This is a race Kate, race in which anything is allowed”

“I see. By the way, what are those daggers you got? They seem identical to the daggers you own”

“Ah, these? This one is for you and the other one for Agon” Shiv said passing the dagger to Kate and Agon. “As for Vrolis, I will give you one later. And Grohl I assume that you are fine without one?”

“I do not need such dangerous looking thing great one, the god’s grace will act as my attack and defense.” The young boy replied smiling at Shiv. “But great one, what is this special weapon?”

“That is a secret my friend. You will find out soon”

Shiv then turned towards Agon. “Agon did you buy the arrows I asked?”

“Yes, I did get the arrows and quivers. I also bought a new bow for me. With the rest of the amount I bought a light weight armor which will not hinder my speed and movement”

“Good. Now we wait till tomorrow”

---***---

"Razor! What do you think about that guy's announcement?"

"He doesn't seem to be fabricating nor does he seem part of the group which were PK'ing so I guess it is safe to believe what he said"

"So are we going to join his party?"

"No we won't. Since it carries a great risk. What if one of those who joins this party of his causes problems? We might end up in trouble. Let us move separately. Besides out of us four, only i was given the quest so we four will deal with it somehow. But if what he said is true then the beast is going to give us a hard time"

Raven looked at his giant red sword and whispered to it, "Lend me your strength buddy" and as if to reply his request the sword let out a dim glow.

Raven smiled and then sheathed his sword into the scabbard on his back and then walked,

"Let us go. We will keep an eye on things for now. You three are not in the list of hundred so keep an eye on things with minimum exposure, keep a low profile."

"Yes boss" the three companions replied and then scattered leaving the red hero alone.

---***---

“I found you at last! Ryu Yasahiro, you will pay for your sins”

The boy who was named the apostle of light clenched his fist recollecting the humiliation he had undergone a while ago. Gritting his teeth he slammed his fist on the table next to him scaring his two companions.

“Marcos I got a job for you, don’t disappoint me”

“No Sir Adrian”

---***---

Next day Shiv and his party was waiting at the fountain where he had announced to the others about his knowledge about the beast. He was now waiting hoping at least one of the remaining candidates would join him to hunt down the beast. To his surprise there were already two at the fountain waiting for Shiv. Shiv then waited for another three hours or so and when he had called of the waiting game, there were five candidates who were willing to join Shiv.

Out of the five, three were boys and the rest were girls. The five introduced themselves as Maya, Nadia, Gist, Marcos and Rehan. Rehan, Maya and Nadia were of the same party while Gist and Marcos were solo players and had jumped at the chance of getting a high ranked quest. It had only been a little more than a month since the game had launched and so high ranked quests were a rarity. Right now rank A quests were the highest available difficulty though there were rumors that some had even got S ranked quests.

Rehan was a knight, Maya a berserker and Maria a healer, one of the stable and powerful combos. Gist had introduced himself as sword dancer, a unique class with great attack and defense. Marcos though was nothing special, an archer, a normal one. Shiv was surprised when Marcos told his class as a solo archer had many disadvantages in a game. Marcos had then explained to Shiv that his previous party disbanded as the leader was incapable and weak. Marcos then explained that he had accepted the quest to gain more fame and contribution points so that he could become a noble or the sort, he had expected to hunt down the beast together with the remaining 99.

Once the introductions were over, the candidates formed a party. Shiv then fulfilled his end of the bargain and gave the new five members the necessary information. When the five heard what Shiv said they could not believe their ears,

“Level 200 or above? Why is such a thing here in this city? Are you sure?” Rehan could not fathom the things he heard, his body had already began to tremble. The two girls despaired at the thought of fighting such a thing, so was Marcos. But different from the other four, Gist looked unshaken. He looked Shiv in his eyes and then sighed,

“And? What is the plan? You already have everything set, right?”

“Ho! What makes you say so, Gist?”

“Call it a dancer’s intuition!” this remark made Shiv smile and Gist smiled back too.

“Come with me guys, what I am going to show you is classified information. Do not disclose even if you were to die” Shiv then kept walking till they reached the weapon smithy.

“Golof, is it ready?” Shiv called out loud and out came a man laughing.

“Of course it is. It is in the warehouse behind the smithy”

The group followed the weaponsmith to the warehouse silently. Golof then opened the door and let the group see what was inside it.

“You? How?” Gist could not muster the words. Everyone else was dumbfounded.

Shiv walked near the numerous weapons and then smiled. “These babies are going to kill us an alpha friends. Let me introduce these babies to you, say hello to Dragon Lore’s very first Ballista units, Iron Striker”

Even Shiv’s own party members were dumbfounded.

“How did you?” Kate asked Shiv with her voice full of excitement.

“This idea came to me when I was thinking about my past exploits. I mean the dust explosion concept I used to hunt down goblins”

“How are these two related?”

“Let me finish. Dust explosion is a concept which is based on principles of our real world. And so I thought, if principles and laws of our world were applicable to this world then will things of the real world work inside this virtual space. When such a thought occurred to me, I wondered why not try making something of our world in here. And so first I and Golof tried making a metal cross bow which is mountable on your hand, like in those action movies. After a little effort we were able to make one, though it had its limitations. The next day I brought a photo of the simple ballista which I drew with my own ideas. Of course I had a little help from a weapon loving maniac of a friend. For the last five days I and Golof have being indulged with this thing here and we finally were able to make two miniature version of the real ballista. Well you really can’t call it a ballista though”

“Why is that so?” Gist questioned.

“I believe you might have seen a real ballista somewhere. The real ballista fires its spikes in a parabolic fashion that is the ballista body is inclined to the ground, but these ballista are not”

“I see. They are parallel to the ground”

“Yes, they are. And so this decreases the effective range of the weapon which in this case is a good thing.”

“Why is it a good thing? Is it not better to have a longer reach so that we might hunt down the beast from a safe distance?”

“Gist, think about the area we are going to fight the beast. We are in the middle of a capital, a fully populated area. What happens if we use a ballista with very long range? It will cause a lot of problems”

“I see. In that case, even if the range decreases won't it still cause damage to the city?”

“It will, and so each shot will be fired with the utmost care. That is also the reason I have prepared a smaller as well as parallel ballista. The range decreases because of these two factors but the power is only a little less. I believe this weapon carry enough strength to penetrate the alpha’s skin. But the problem now is whom to entrust these babies to. I suppose one will go to Marcos who is an archer and so will be able to use it better. The second will be manned by my own archer, Agon.”

The others agreed and so the operators of the ballista were fixed, Marcos, Agon and Maria. The two were then shown the way to operate the ballista without the iron spike ammo. The party then discussed various plans and strategies to take down the beast. Plans were made on how to lure the monster to the place where the ballista would be fixed.

There was an open space near the place, surrounded by buildings where the beast was usually spotted which Shiv considered the ideal place to engage the alpha beast. The ballista were then placed in the narrowest alleyways and the NPC’s around were asked to vacate the area as soon as possible. The group then began preparing traps in the open space which Shiv had prepared. The traps weren't anything special, the party ploughed the land to make depressions in the ground. Shiv then asked the party to get some barrels of oil to fill the trenches with. He also gathered some iron barricades to close of all the remaining alleyways except the one that was supposed to be the way the beast was to come. Once all preparations were completed, Shiv then sent Maya and Gist to lure the beast. Shiv had secretly asked Vrolis to look after the two. Grohl had already been placed inside one of the buildings unknown to the rest.

And now the party lay in wait. Time passed on as the party patiently stood waiting for the beast to appear. Shiv knew that the chances of the beast appearing that day was low as there was no certain pattern to the appearance of the beast. The alpha came and went whenever it pleased. Shiv came to this conclusion from what Vrolis had told him. Vrolis who had been sent to keep tab on things that occurred each night for the last one week or so had explained that the beast had appeared only two times in those days. And so Shiv was sure that the chances of the alpha appearing was less than 50%. But still he and his party lay in wait, hoping the alpha would make its appearance. And it did.

---***---

My new ff

Sorry for the late release. will speed up from today

ARMAGEDDON: THE NEW WORLD

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