“Shouldn’t we scout this out first?” Briar asks.

I walk up the gate—it’s time we saw what was going on with this quest. I don’t want to waste a ton of time talking about what to do here. We can just go up and see if this wizard attacks us on sight or lets us talk to him. I slip through the gate without touching the bars; I know nothing about magic, but it feels like it wouldn’t be wise to brush against these bars covered in alchemical symbols.

Kian and Briar quickly shuffle up behind me, and Briar jumps into the shadows as I raise my fist to knock. Before my hand touches the door, I hear a loud gong, and for a second I expect music to start. I hear noises within the house, and the door creaks open. A small man, or maybe he is a gnome, appears in the doorway. He has bushy eyebrows, large hands and feet, and is wearing a black wizard’s robe. His hair is short on top and his beard, grown to a point, is pure black. He peers over his glasses at us with no fear. I can feel the hairs on my arm raise and know immediately that the door is magically shielded. My perception skill shows the blue glow of a protective spell across the front of the door. With that protection it would be suicide to attack him.

“Please don’t hide, come out,” the magician asks Briar, who falls out of the shadows after being detected. “Well, now what is it you want, I am a busy man?”

“W-we killed the baker,” I blurt out. “He was working for you.”

“Ah, yes,” the magician says, “that is unfortunate. He had access to specimens I require, so this complicates things. I gather you didn’t come here to confess. Additionally, I expect you know what he was after?”

“Not exactly,” Kian says, warily.

“He wanted a special binding enchantment so he could force a creature to work night and day for him making bread.” The magician waves a hand in the air. “A trifle, really, and such a mundane use for my work.”

I inspect the wizard see and he is level eight, a respectable amount above our levels, so he could likely defeat us with ease.

I am careful to weigh words; we might both complete our quest and reap rewards from this wizard. “Do you need any help?” I ask, hoping to trigger a quest from this NPC.

His eyes light up. “In fact I do. I cannot ask you to do what the baker did for me, but I have another issue. You see, I have a Kobold infestation.” His smile looks odd, “The rodents have invaded a cavern behind my laboratory, behind this house. I have not had the time to exterminate them myself. Please handle that for me, okay?”

Quest chain: A daring endeavor (part 2)

You have gone to work with the dark wizard instead of fighting him. Now he has given you a quest to defeat the Kobolds invading his laboratory.Success: Defeat the Kobolds.

Failure: Abandon the quest.

I click accept. Kobolds are usually level one, so this should be quick and easy. It also gets us on the good side of the wizard, who may offer us more.

“Thank you. Please see me in my laboratory when you complete this task,” the magician says as he closes the door.

“We could have taken him,” Briar says, fingering his knife.

“No,” I say and explain the warding.

“Oh man, I didn’t see that. How did you?” He asks.

“Didn’t you get the perception skill?” asks Kian.

“No, what are you guys talking about?”

Kian walks off muttering. I shrug, and we walk around the house to start the job. The house must be magically enchanted as well, as it is larger than it looks. Behind the house are the rising cliff walls of this canyon. Right at the base of the cliff is the laboratory, a small windowless stone building with a glass-paned ceiling. It smells of chemicals and alcohol, even at a distance. The roof of the laboratory has four chimneys all emitting some kind of caustic-looking steam or smoke. I watch as the billowing smoke rises up to the scrub brush and stilted trees growing in the steep incline.

Passing the laboratory, we see the quest cave and notice that broken barrels are in the doorway. My perception picks up small footprints leading into and out of the cave and discarded bones of small animals that have been gnawed clean.

Seeing extinguished torches near the entrance, we light one on a small fire outside the laboratory. I wave Kian and Briar to either side and motion to the shadows and that they should stay in front of me. I hoist the torch in front of me and walk into the cave with the boys leading on either side in the shadows. I can see Briar’s blue outline move high along the cave wall. It looks like he found a ledge. Neither of them can go far as the edge of the torchlight only makes it twenty-five feet. I slowly walk, step by step, over bones, around broken crates, and on top of barrels. The wizard had been using this area to store supplies, it looks like.

My perception picks up a red glow ahead of me and I strain to see what is up front as I move forward. I open up the voice chat.

“We have one up ahead, coming this way,” I say.

“I see,” Kian whispers as his blue glow moves forward and up.

I stop and wait; I wedge the torch into place on a barrel and step back into the dark, my cloak blending in, a perfect charcoal, hidden from all eyes.

I can see Kian and Briar reposition themselves as my misdirection becomes clear. Tas the mine Kobold makes cautious steps—advancing on the torch. The Kobold is an ugly small creature the size of a three-year-old child. Its skin is dark, its ears are tall and pointed, and its nose is bulbous and looks like it could pop. It slowly enters the small clearing by the torch, and I see its nose sniffing the air—it is going to smell us. I have two attacks and damage bonuses; it is time to stick a knife in this thing.

A dark blob falls from the ceiling, and with two quick stabs the Kobold is dead without a sound. Kian stands and wipes black blood from his knife. “These shadow attacks are amazing,” he says.

“I was about to get him,” I say.

“So was I—damnit,” Briar says.

“Can’t let you guys have all the fun.” Kian puts his knife back in his belt and searches the Kobold, placing three gold coins in his bag. There was nothing else of value. “Let’s go,” he says.

I pick up the torch and we move farther into the cave; I try to lure another Kobold in, but this time two show up. One of the two is on all fours sniffing the ground. It falls to Briar in a flash of darkness, and I take the other with Kian adding a finishing blow, as one of my hits only glanced the creature’s neck.

We continue on slowly. After five minutes of walking I can see light ahead. It looks like a small fire ahead in a side cave. I set the torch down and join my friends in darkness as we move forward. We stop short of the side cave, seeing another kobold move into it. I see Kian is above the Kobold, so I make a ‘pfft’ sound and it turns and steps toward me, before quickly dying to Kian’s knife.

I climb up the edge like I saw the boys do, though it’s a lot harder than it looks. I should put a skill point to strength. I peek around the edge of the side cave from higher up and I see the fire pit. Next to the pit there is a larger Kobold with one of the small ones. I inspect the big guy and see it is level three.

I wave Kian and Briar up to look and we back away to where we can talk.

“Let’s lure it out,” I say, “I’ll be bait—”

“Deal,” says Briar, a bit too quickly. A huge smile on his face.

I nearly burst out laughing and wave them toward the cave entrance. Once they are in place, it is my turn to do my act. I run back down toward the entrance and grab my torch. I walk to the front of the side cave entrance and place the torch in full view of the lead Kobold. I start to hum, and I hear a screech as the Kobolds both stand and run at me. The smaller one reaches the main cave first and Briar and Kian let it pass. Their goal is the leader.

The small one runs at me. Picking up the torch in my left hand, I hold it front of me. The creature stops and I lunge at it with my knife, but I miss completely and fall forward. The torch smashes into the Kobold’s face. Slashing wildly around, it knocks the torch back onto me.

You hit Kobold for 4 fire damage.

Kobold hits you for 2 damage

Kobold hits you for 2 damage

Kobold hits you for 4 fire damage

I swipe up and land a hit on the little monster, killing it, and try to spring to my feet; I am down to 30% of my total hit points and I can’t take another attack. I see Briar is on the ground with two hit points left and Kian is engaging the lead monster. With Briar out, I know I have to do something; this big Kobold is tough.

As Kian doges an attack, I run screaming at the last Kobold from its flank, I duck into shadows while running and leap into the air. Legs tucked under me I slash out and with a glancing stab in the side of the head the Kobold screams, but I don’t do any damage.

Landing on the other side I smell the beast and can feel it’s breath as it is turning to strike, I swing my arm back and plunge the knife into it’s neck.

You hit Kobold leader for 2 (+2 flanking) damage.

You kill Kobold leader.

Notifications scroll by and I push them to the side. I do see one of them mentions conditions met for the quest are complete. In the edge of my vision I can see Briar take another point of damage. There shouldn’t be any more Kobolds here. Both Kian and I look at Briar and his face looks confused. What is going on?

Briar coughs and then says, “Crap… bleeding debuff,” in a croak. I see his icon turn grey and his body wisps away as if a slight breeze had blown smoke.

“Oh man,” says Kian, laughing. “He will be so pissed about not looting this dude.” He gives the dead kobold leader a kick.

I step in to look at the loot list for this creature, and I see there is a knife and a ring, I toss both in my pack. I look back in the Kobold’s living area; I pick up 25 gold and several rolls of dark cloth; I toss it all into my bag. Returning, I stop to inspect the weapon. It is a level three knife that none of us can use yet, but is a significant upgrade. The ring is a level three ‘Ring of shadow cast’. “Oh, that explains what happened,” Kian says, looking at the ring. “We attacked his shadow first, and the real him was in the shadows behind. I read the description of the ring out loud, “In low light, the ring wielder can cast a simulacrum of himself ahead of his position. If hide-in-shadows check fails, the simulacrum disappears.” Oh wow, this is useful.

“Glad you looted that, you deserve that for saving me.” He points the Kobold’s knife he picked up for his loot. “He would have killed me with the next hit.”

“We both got new knives, so we can buy Briar a new one back in town,” I say, and he nods.

I can’t put the ring on yet, as I am still level two, so I toss it in my bag and look around for anything else. I try to see if my perception can help me find any secrets. Come on secret doors, let’s find the secret kobold treasure. I am rewarded when I spy a brief glint on the wall and walk over and pick a gem from a crevasse. Inspection reveals it is worth 200 gold pieces.

“Damn,” Kian says, looking at my find.

“Yep, we are going to get some new gear. Then we are going to deal with the wizard.”

***

I walk out of the cave into the night with Kian, battered but proud. Rounding the laboratory, we knock on its door and a smaller door—inside the top half of the door—opens. The wizard looks at us. “Yes?”

“The kobolds are gone,” I say proudly.

“Indeed, they are. An excellent job for scrub adventurers,” he says, squinting out into the darkness.

Quest chain: A daring endeavor (part 2)

You completed part 2 of this quest chain.

Reward: 400xp, 25gp, part 3.

I hear a ding as I see my level increase. The small number next to my name advances to ‘3’ and I see a small blur of notifications in the lower right corner of my vision.

“Hmmm,” he says. “I could use you for more another day. Please come back tomorrow afternoon with the other member of your party.”

I notice that Briar’s icon is active, but there is no audio contact available from this distance at our level.

“Okay, well let’s go get Briar and come back tomorrow, ” I say.

“Yeah, I wish we had fast travel in this game. It would help,” says Kian

We walk out of the valley and I see Kian’s icon black out; I spin around as he turns into wisps of black smoke, a barbed arrow falls on the grounI duck down, but I cannot enter the shadows. An arrow goes through my leg, pinning me.

SilverBtch hits you for 5 (+3)(+3) damage.

My hit points are nearly flatline, and I was only hit in the leg—there is no way I can take another hit. I look up and see SilverBtch stand over me; she is wearing the green tight-fitting armor of rangers, with a mask, boots, and gloves to match. Her cape swirls as she walks. Is this player doing this to make a recording? With a mask on, she pulls back an arrow and says, “Time to die, charity case.” Then, she releases.

You have died

Thank you for playing Imagine Online, part of Unlimited Worlds

Your respawn point: Kesmai.

Your respawn wait time: 10 minutes (9:58)

Experience lost: 0

Eye-for-an-eye target: SilverBtch

Behind the pop-up I could see the replay of my death.