“Bullie, you said you knew where another dungeon was?” Torrie said once we were standing under the evening sky outside the Metro. “Do we have the time to run it, and more importantly do we have enough healing potions?”

“Hrmm, I sorta know the general area that the dungeons in. I don’t know anything about it though.” That was a partial lie. It was true I wasn’t certain exactly where it was on the game map since the in game map was a little different, I did know a bit about the dungeon itself. But I couldn’t really explain that now, could I? “Hey Aibee, since I’ve learned about this dungeon already, does that mean you can access information on it?”

“Do you know the name of this dungeon?”

“Ummm, some kind of factory, I think the guy said. He was out exploring solo so he didn’t dare to go into the dungeon itself, but he said there was a sign outside. Traviss Manacite Factory, maybe?” I feigned trying to remember the name.

“Affirmative. 4.5 miles Northeast from here is the Manacite Factory Dungeon.” Aibee replied from her perch on my shoulder.

“What is Manacite?” Zed asked.

“It is a type of ore with high magical properties. I cannot tell you more before you discover the ore, however.”

“Ok, thanks Aibee.” I sighed and reviewed my inventory. “I have 5 [Small Healing Potions] left. I also have two [Small Mana Potions] that I don’t need, so here, you take them Lorelei.”

She took them, and we took stock of our supplies. Everyone had around the same amount of potions. Torrie lamented that she hadn’t yet taken Alchemy as she had a lot of herbs she’d collected so far and could probably make a bunch of healing potions now.

I was the most hesitant out of everyone to push on to another dungeon and our third boss fight of the night, but I knew there was some good possible loot in the next dungeon as well as a couple toys that would help us out a lot in the near future so I voted to go. Everyone else was eager, so we set off.

The trip was mostly uneventful. We collected some more ore and herbs along the way, had a couple encounters with [Sand Wolves] and [Desert Boars], collecting more meat and cloth scraps. The broken desert area gave way to a barren wasteland with dry, hard ground and half-dead scrub brush, then into an area where we could see the destroyed remains of buildings. Mostly just the occasional wall and a lot of rubble.

Finally Aibee pointed and we saw a large, rectangular building ahead. It had a worn brown-brick façade and several windows on the two sides we could see from this angle, most broken or opaque with dirt and age. As we got closer, the windows all seemed to be sealed up by some kind of rusty metal shutter on the inside of the window. The front of the building had a set of glass double doors that were so grimy with dirt that we couldn’t see through them and a worn sign out front said “Traviss Manacite Factory”. Circling the building, there were two large, heavy metal doors that looked like loading dock doors on the back side of the building, but we couldn’t budge them now was Torrie able to pick the locks, so we headed back around and prepared to enter the front doors.

We opened the doors and entered. It was dark inside, and even with our lights we couldn’t see what lay beyond. This was probably a function of it being an instanced dungeon, as we would be transported into a private zone once we stepped through. Dagg led the way once more, and we stepped through.

This time I noticed the transition, a nearly imperceptible stutter as I transitions into the dudgeon’s zone and could feel a slight tickling sensation wash over me. The same had happened when I went into the Metro dungeon, I realized, but didn’t know what it was at the time. I assumed it was just nerves.

Inside we found ourselves in what looked to be a reception area. A pair of desks flanked a single hallway leading out directly across from the doors we entered, and chairs and a few small tables were set up to create a waiting area. Of course all the furniture was ancient and worn, the metal rusted and corroded, the wood warped and decaying, but their functions were still obvious.

As we entered, a status screen popped up in front of us with a quest for the dungeon.

QUEST: Manacite Factory Exploration GOAL: Explore the Ravensport Manacite Factory, defeat 4 Manacite Golems and defeat the Manacite Guardian Golem. REWARD (First Clear): 2000 XP, 1000 GP [Y] [N]

“Dude, nice! A quest to go along with the dungeon.” Zed said with a grin. “No gear, but really nice XP and Gold reward.”

“It says “first clear” for the reward. Does that mean it’s because no one else has completed the dungeon yet, or is it just the reward for the first time you run the dungeon?”

“No clue, Torrie, but does it matter?” I asked.

“Not really, I guess.” She replied, and we all accepted the quest.

“First Clears offer extra rewards for being the first players to clear a dungeon.” Aibee offered up. “The final boss will often have better than average drops as well.”

“Oh. That answers that then. Bull, Aibee is awesome. And way more useful than you." orrie grinned at me. "Now, let’s go kick this dungeon’s butt!”

We didn’t see anything inside the reception area and a quick check of the desks found that not only were they crumbling at our touch, anything that was in their drawers had long since rotted away. We started moving down the hallway carefully.

The hall was about ten feet wide and stretched out past the edge of the [Glowstone]. There were two doors on either side of the hall. These doors were wooden and were starting to rot away as well. Carefully, Dagg opened up the first door after making sure we were prepared. Shining the light in, the room was devoid of enemies and mostly empty, a 15 by 15 foot room with a desk and a rusted metal filing cabinet. An office of some kind. The cabinet and desk were both empty of anything but trash.

The other three doors proved to be nearly identical, empty offices. Past that, the hallway came to a four way intersection. The light didn’t reach the end of either hall, but at the end of the hall to our left there was large, shadowy figure just at the very edge. I pointed it out to the others silently. Dagg nodded and took a step up that hallway to get a closer look, and suddenly two bright blue lights flared in the darkness, glowing eyes.

With a whine of metal moving for the first time in decades, a large figure strode forward a step. It was at least as tall as Dagg, and bulkier. It resembled a suit of plate armor, with vivid blue lights shining through the eye holes of the helmet. It had no right hand however, instead it’s arm ending in an absurdly large and wickedly sharp looking double-headed battle axe.

“Halt, intruders.” A metallic, raspy voice rang out from the creature, a [Manacite Golem]. “Present your worker identification or leave the premises immediately.”

“We don’t have identification.” Zed whispered quietly. “What do we do? Did we miss something?”

“I don’t think so.” I whispered back. “Remember, the quest calls for us to defeat 4 of these as well as a Guardian, probably the boss. I think we gotta fight.”

“Your failure to comply has been noted. Prepare to be destroyed.” It bent forward a little, angled one shoulder toward us like a running back trying to bust through a tackle, and suddenly rocketed forward toward us. It was so sudden it caught us all off guard, and in that instant I noticed that its shoulder pads both had long, wicked spikes jutting out from them. It rammed into Dagg, knocking him to one side and kept right on going, slamming through Lorelei and then into me, knocking me back a step as a red 120 flashed up in front of my vision to tell me how much damage I’d taken.

Dagg taunted the golem and it turned to face him as he swung his sword down at it, slashing at the metal with a shower of sparks. I ordered Raider to attack, and fell back a few steps to put a bit of distance between myself and the metal monster. I fired an arrow as I did so, dealing 70 damage to the golem. Zed started playing a hard, fast guitar riff I didn’t recognize, but I felt his Bardic Performance buff wash over me. Lorelei moved back near me and cast a heal on herself, while Torrie moved in and began attacking as well.

The [Manacite Golem] raised it’s axe up, and suddenly the top half of the creature spun completely around like a top, the axe slicing out around it. Torrie, Dagg, and Raider were all hit by the attack, and my Sand Tiger took 80 damage. We all attacked back, and Torrie began focusing on healing Dagg. The golem attacked with just a single axe swing several more times, then turned and faced Zed and did its shoulder charge once again, hitting Torrie, Dagg, and Zed this time.

Fortunately Zed had gone the opposite direction from us, or that could have been nasty. It followed up once again with the whirlwind slice, but Torrie and I were waiting for that, so she stayed back and I had commanded Raider to wait. Zed had stepped back as well, so this time only Dagg was hit. A couple more rounds of attacks, and the Golem collapsed in a heap of scrap metal, then dissipated into a shower of particle.

A combat reward window popped up informing me that I got 10 Gold and 20 XP from the fight, but I just dismissed it as we regrouped. I drank down a healing potion and applied one to Raider, leaving me with three left. I’d have to conserve carefully the rest of this dungeon.

“Ok, we got some Common junk. I’ve picked up a few of those, we’ll see if anyone needs them after the dungeon, but it’s likely vendor trash at this point.” Torrie said after reviewing the Master Loot reward window for a minute. “But we also found a piece of grey vendor trash, a [Damaged Golem Core] worth 100 Gold, and a Rare quality item called a [Manacite Battery] It doesn’t have any stats and doesn’t seem to be equippable, but is worth 250 Gold and has descriptive text: ‘Used to power Manatechnology.’ Whatever that means.”

“Let’s keep exploring. We need to find at least 3 more of these, and the boss.” I said. “We can worry about Manatech whatevers later. Maybe we’ll find out more when we beat the boss or in one of these side rooms.”

We kept exploring the Manacite Factory. One of the first large rooms we came across had a [Manacite Golem], but we were able to handle it better than the first one now that we knew its attacks. The room itself looked to be a ritual room of some kind, maybe. There was this strange, glowing yellow fungus on some of the walls, and there was a pedestal with a huge stone cauldron on it that was surrounded by more fungus and had some growing inside it. The fungus spores weren’t targetable, and when we asked Aibee she said it was a harmless byproduct of some alchemicals that had once been in the cauldron, but we all avoided touching it anyway just in case.

Exploring some more we came across a few more offices, all in similar shape to the first couple we’d found. We came across one that had a [Manacite Golem] inside the door. It caught us by surprising, attacking as soon as the door opened, but Dagg managed to keep it bottled up and we took it down with only a bit of damage. These golems each dropped another [Damaged Golem Core] and a [Manacite Battery]. This was in the central hallway, and just past that office at the end of the hall was a pair of large, heavy metal doors. We assumed this was the boss chamber, so we continued exploring as we needed at least one more [Manacite Golem] for the quest.

Exploring to the right side of the central hall, we found another corridor that led to more offices and two more large rooms. One appeared to be some kind of ritual summoning room, as it had magical glyphs inscribed on the walls and floor, and an enormous fifteen-foot wide pentagram inside a circle that dominated the floor one end of the room. The other had a large metal cauldron that had long since dried out and tables with bits of broken glass and metal tubes surrounding them, an alchemy lab of some kind.

At the end of the hall was the fourth [Manacite Golem] and we made short work of it as well. Lorelei still had a handful of [Small Mana Potions], so she cast several healing spells on those of us running low on heal potions so that we could save them for the boss fight. We then made our way back to the double doors where the boss waited.

I knocked an arrow to have it ready as Dagg prepared to open the door. I only had twenty arrows left so I was concerned about the fight going too long, but there wasn’t much I could do at this point. Zed began plucking out some deep guitar notes, the opening riff to The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army. Dagg pushed the double doors open and we stepped through the threshold.

We stepped forward into a very large room, and much like the room of the ghoul boss we fought in the Metro the lights came on as we stepped into the room. Apparently the developers were nice enough not to force us to fight the boss in the dark. The room itself was maybe 80 by 40 feet and had a number of what appeared to be workstations lined up around the room, with piles of crates and boxes along the walls.

At the center of the back wall stood an enormous blue and silver golem that looked for all the world like it could transform into a steam-powered locomotive. It stood around ten feet tall and was easily five feet across the shoulders. Two pylons rose off its shoulders that began sparking and smoking as soon as the golem began moving, and it had a large angled plate covering its chest that looked a bit like the cow-catcher off a an old train. In place of hands it had a pair of what looked to be large-caliber machine guns. The [Manacite Guardian Golem]’s eyes lit up a bright yellow as it came to life with a rumble.

Dagg charged forward with a taunt as the golem unleashed a hail of bullets toward him, the rounds pinging off his shield and punching through his chainmail. He roared and began to attack the golem, Lorelei cast a Protection spell on Dagg, and I unleashed a pair of arrows with Rapid Shot, though one simply ricocheted off the helmet of the monster doing no damage, while the other buried itself into its shoulder for a mere 65 damage. Seeing how much Damage Reduction the boss had, I held Raider back for now as he’d be unable to deal any damage. Torrie went into stealth and began moving around the golem while Zed unleashed a rippling Dischord into it.

The golem swiveled and this time unleashed a sweeping barrage from both of its gun arms. Torrie was almost behind the it, so she was untouched, but the rest of us were inside its 90 degree firing arc and were hit. Raider and I both took 80 damage, so the bosses special must do about 100 damage total.

“Spread out and try to outside of its front arc!” I called, moving off to one side as I fired another arrow, this one critting and dealing 83 damage. 17 arrows left and the boss’s health was barely touched yet.

Zed and Lorelei circled to the left, moving the opposite direction I did. Lorelei healed Dagg, while Zed continued to play. Torrie materialized and hit the golem in the back, and I could see the things health bar in my HUD visibly drop. She could dish out a decent amount of damage with her Backstab, and it looked like maybe she got a crit on top of that.

The two pylons on the golem’s back began to glow and spark as it shot Dagg again and I called out a warning and moved a little further back until I was against the far wall. I fired again, and the golem suddenly discharged a ball of blue lightning centered on itself and expanding outward. It stopped just in front of me as I was outside its range and I breathed in a sigh of relief. On the far side, Lorelei was safe, but Zed looked like he got hit. Being in melee both Dagg and Torrie got nailed as well. I saw all three of their health bars drop visibly in the party status window and winced. That was a powerful attack.

The fight continued on from there, with the boss alternating between its specials while continuing to attack Dagg. After the first time, we were able to avoid it’s arc spray attack as it stayed focused on its primary aggro target and the rest of us had moved far enough to the sides so only our tank was hit. The electric discharge attack was more troublesome, as it was able to almost cover the entire room and the golem kept moving around a little. Dagg tried his best to keep the boss centered, but I got zapped by it once for 180 damage, and Zed and Lorelei likewise got hit again. Torrie meanwhile kept a watch for the pylons to start glowing then dashed over by me as fast as she could, but she got caught a couple times as it was hard to cover that much distance in time. It also meant her damage output slowed considerably since she missed out on a couple of attacks.

I watched my arrow supply dwindle, and I used two of my three healing potions after getting hit by the electrical attack. The others all used health and mana potions as needed, and Lorelei struggled to maintain healing on Dagg. I watched the bosses health bar drop slowly, then remembered something a hair too late – this boss went berserk at 10% health. I was about to call out as Dagg landed another blow and the [Manacite Guardian Golem] suddenly started sparking wildly as it sped up drastically. Its attack speed effectively doubled, and I grimaced.

“It’s berserk!” Torrie called out, realizing what was going on. “Damage! All the damage you can, now!”

Unfortunately we were limited by our lack of skills at this point. I fired one of the last three of my arrows as fast as I could. Dagg swung his sword one more time, and then got hit by another electrical burst that also hit Torrie as she no longer had the time to react and run away. It followed up with a machine gun burst and the fighter went down. Lorelei quickly threw a healing onto Torrie, and I told Raider to run back to the entrance of the dungeon, to hopefully keep him from getting killed, and to maybe guard us as we respawned in case more of the smaller golems showed up.

The golem turned and shot Torrie, who retaliated with her dagger. I loosed another arrow, ignoring my Rapid Shot for now. The defense of the boss was high enough that I’d missed a couple of those so far, and the attack penalty meant they were less likely to crit if they did hit. The arrow connected, doing minimum damage. The golem fired its burst shot at Torrie and I saw her health drop perilously low. Torrie rushed a healing spell, but the pylons began to glow again, and a moment later the golem unleashed its electric discharge and Torrie went down.

Lorelei and Zed turned and moved in two different directions as the golem turned and began chasing the healer. He healing had outdone my arrow damage, so she was higher on the aggro list, I guess. I figured my last arrow, saying a silent prayer as I did so. The arrow connected and flashed a crit, dealing 101 damage. The health bar of the boss was down to a mere sliver.

“I’m out of arrows!” I yelled.

“Run for it!” Lorelei yelled as she turned and swung her staff at the golem awkwardly. She connected, but I don’t think staves did much damage. The golem raked her with its arc fire, and her health almost completely vanished. She continued to lead the golem away from Zed, hoping his Dischord would come off cooldown. It took a couple steps then fired it’s burst-fire once again, and Lorelei went down with a scream.

“Shit!” Zed yelled. The Boss turned and fired another burst-fire and stitched a line of bullets across his chest. It then began charging up another electrical discharge. I took a few more steps down the hall, out of the boss room and away from the fight, ready to run. I didn’t want to abandon everyone, but I was scared to die as well. Then I heard Zed rip a loud, off note chord, the distinctive sound of his Dischord attack. I crossed my fingers as I watched the visible wave of sound crash into the golem, and with a clatter the Golem collapsed to the ground and exploded into particles.

“Yes! YES! Fuck yeah!” I heard Zed yelling from the boss room. “Take that you scrapheap!”

I collapsed to my knees and gasped. I felt so very drained after that fight. A minute later Dagg, Lorelei, and Torrie came up the hall followed by Raider, mostly in their underwear. I turned away to allow them a moment of pseudo-privacy as they collected the bags their corpses dropped. Since they'd died fighting a mob, these bags were locked to anyone else looting them for one hour after death, at which point they would then be lootable by anyone.

I stood and headed into the boss room. My personal loot window said I got 20 gold and 100 XP from the boss fight. Torrie opened up the Master Loot window and grinned.

“Ok, we got 4 more [Manacite Batteries], 4 more [Damaged Golem Cores], and three pieces of loot, all Rare. This one’s for you Bull, a [Manacite Crossbow]. You’re our only ranged, so that’s automatically yours. There’s also a [Manacite Belt], light armor but requires 5 strength. I don’t know that any of us can wear it, but I’m probably the closest. My strength is at 4 right now.” We discussed it, and it was decided to let Torrie have the belt.

“And finally, and this is the coolest one. [Mini Manacite Guardian]!” She said with a squeal.

”Is that…?”

“Yeah Zed. Minipet! It’s Bind on Acquire though, so I gotta give it to someone. I got the belt, so I think it needs to go to someone else, which makes me a sad kender.” Torrie said with a sigh.

“I got the Crossbow, so I’m out.” I said.

“Lorelei has gotten the least loot tonight, I think. Give it to her.” Zed said decisively, giving up his chance at the pet. Lorelei looked over at him and beamed a huge smile.

“Thank you Zed!” She walked over and gave him a big hug, then knelt and pulled something out of her inventory and set it on the floor. It was a miniature version of the boss, standing about a foot tall. It marched around her and mimed firing its gun hands adorably. Aibee flew in from the hallway where she’d been hiding and hovered around the [Mini Golem], looking at it curiously. It was three times her size and just towered over her.

I looked at my new [Manacite Crossbow] happily. It was very cool looking, resembling a blue, crystalline sci-fi rifle with the bar of a crossbow across the front. Its stats were pretty nice – 120 Damage, +2 AGI, Requires STR 4, AGI 6, Range: 25’, 25 Durability, Value 400G, Ranged Weapon (SPECIAL: Manashot, Damage 200, Range 20’, AMMO: [Manacite Battery], 4 Shots per battery.) It was capable of firing regular arrows, but I could also use the [Manacite Battery] that we’d found to fire much heavier shots.

There were two doors off either side of the boss room, so after healing up some we moved over to one and opened it up. It was a storage room full of rusted and half-collapsed metal shelves. There were wooden storage boxes and crates, most of which has disintegrated from age, but several were intact so Torrie approached one and cautiously opened it.

“Quest item!” Torrie said, excitedly. She pulled out an item that looked like a crystalline egg cut lengthwise down the middle. There were five in the box, and she handed one to each of us. I looked it over carefully and grinned. This is what I’d wanted to come here for. These were a version of the “fantasy smartphone” that we’d seen in the games opening cut-scene and would prove incredibly useful.

“Ok, if you use the item, it will give you a quest. It’s vague, says to show these to an expert on ancient history.” Torrie said, frowning at them.

”The old man from the cut-scene.” I replied with a grin. “He’s at the Town Hall. He’s a historian, knows a lot of rumors and theories about the pre-Twilight Apoch. I bet that’s who we take this to.”

”Yeah, sounds good. Let’s check out the rest of these boxes, and then head back. It’s getting late,”

QUEST: Get Strange Artifact Examined GOAL: You found a strange artifact in the Manacite Factory. Take this artifact and one [Manacite Battery] to someone who is an expert in ancient history to find out more information. REWARD : ??? [Y] [N]

Searching through the rest of the boxes, we found 8 more [Manacite Batteries] and 16 [Manacite Crystals] which were apparently a crafting material. Everyone was really excited when I told them about the new crossbow, though I wasn’t quite able to equip it yet. I needed to bump up my Strength first.

We also got a quest complete for the dungeon, and it gave us the option of putting in our names and sending out a world wide message. After a brief discussion, we decided not to. No one else had found this dungeon yet, so we decided to keep it a secret for now so we could farm it a couple more times.

Pulling out my [Recall Stone], I concentrated on it and everything went white. I felt like I was floating for a moment, then my vision slowly came into focus. I was standing in the main hall of the Chapel. The floor was made of several type of marble, cut and placed to create ornate designs, and in the center of the room stood an enormous green crystal nearly ten feet tall, pulsing softly with power. This was the crystal that originally powered the Dome around the city, and while it’s power had waned it still retained a bit of that energy. Staring at it, I could feel the small green gem embedded in my back tingle as the two stones resonated with each other.

A white light flashed next to me, and a moment later Torrie’s tiny frame appeared, followed in succession by the rest of our party. Everyone looked beat, and I knew that last dungeon had been a close one, but everyone had a tired grin on their face. We’d prevailed, and that was what mattered.

“Well then, let’s go get paid!” Zed grinned, and we headed out to turn our quests in.