24 days remain of contest A, Friday.

“Welcome back to classes, students,” the teacher says with a slight annoyance. I can see band marks above his ears that show he has been online for an extended period. I am sure I have similar, as we’ve all basically been online for a week.

Reading a paper, he says, “Please be advised that we have apprised your class guardians of the situation. All headsets for the game have the body feedback turned on. That means your muscles will be slowly worked as you are in the game to keep you from atrophy or issues with things like bedsores or bathroom incidents.” He continues on, reading, “Additionally, your headsets can somewhat control bathroom functions, but do not under any circumstances ignore the in-game bathroom icons…”

This is going to be a long day; I look around and see Kian, and just then Briar comes walking in as the bell rings. He flips his hair, smiles, and sits down near the back.

“… and finally, your SAINT program limits have expanded given the special circumstances. If you have not chosen elective SAINT training, then the training today will count against your electives. If you have taken any of your quarterly electives, then you will also need to use a hyperbaric chamber before you leave us today—”

An outcry from the students interrupts the teacher, who tries to continue on, “This is a mandatory SAINT. You still get the same amount; these are things you would choose as electives anyway. The chamber will help keep you from going insane. You will thank us one day…”

‘Mandatory accelerated learning’ just means that they give us the school headsets and cram info into us for fifty minutes. The headsets go on, the teachers have them set up for us, and then we sit and learn the equivalent of a college course in that period. This is standard issue for a class, but typically each of us have had our courses specially picked out for us with counselors since we can remember. Forcing someone to learn warfare who has been in deep study of the classics and philosophy would be, at least according to everything they have taught us, counterproductive.

Nothing to do but buckle up.

***

By the end of Effective Leadership my brain is ready to pop. I stagger into the hyperbaric chamber and lay down; I am required to be in this for four hours, and I am not going to complain. I’m alone and there is a mattress. My thoughts are cloudy as I lay down and sleep.

I awaken as the door makes an obnoxious buzzing sound, I get up feeling better, but still not all there. Ginga! I’ve never done this much accelerated learning with the SAINTs in such a short amount of time before. It should not be dangerous, but I need to make sure I get enough sleep, or I could end up with potential issues.

I make it back, walking in a fog, and I sleep for another hour in my bed.

After I get up, I sip a glass of water and sit on my floor looking at my room, looking at all the useless everything in it. Nothing here is going to help me win this contest. I need to be online and I have a lot to do.

I don’t change my wrinkled clothes; I just pull on the headset and tap the side as I lay down.

***

Arriving in a blizzard of black streaks, I land on my feet and the tombstone on my back nearly tips me over. Morrigan caws from a nearby tree.

“Hi, girl,” I say to the raven, who wipes her beak on a branch and scans the empty lot.

Notification: portal stone erected at map point yarrowland-G-02

Ahh, I almost forgot about this. I need to go help do a stone setup run. Then I am going to gather the clan and we are going to go take care of the outposts. My mind still feels a little sluggish, but being in the game is helping.

I make my way through Port Yarrow and back to the fortress. Once there, I check the portal stone and I have a new option

Qeynos Catacombs

I sent a message to the players Bumblebzz the cleric and FaydeOut the fighter, who I met previously and talked with.

I’m about to go do a new dungeon run, the one I promised you.

Use the Qeynos Catacombs portal destination from the fortress and meet me there.

I slap my hand on the stone and choose the catacombs. Its far past time I added new levels.

***

I crack into being, tottering on a rock, and fall over, barely catching myself from hitting face first. The natural light here is from a fire and what looks like some torches which burn with a blue flame.

“Whoa there!” Briar says. “We haven’t finished up the floor area. We had to put this thing deep in a cave and the enchanters are still working on all the lighting.” He offers a gauntleted hand up, which I take and stand straight.

He continues, “These guys have been giving me the rundown of a lot of what is in this instance. It is nothing like the starter dungeon—that one was easy. This thing sounds insane.” He grins from ear to ear, “Did you know they haven’t finished it yet?”

“They haven’t—”

“No, we have not, little girl,” interjects Sauce as he walks in, bow in hand and an amused expression on his face. “It’s a special story dungeon which is part of the region lore here. You’ll see when you get the quest. The experience and gear are well worth redoing. The parts we have done are fun to redo anyway, and we seem to get a little further each time.”

“So, wait, how far have you guys gotten? I thought you had been farming this dungeon?” I ask

“We have made it pretty far, we think. It’s not a straight dungeon run though. This is not a boring line to the boss. Inside, there are ways you can screw it up where you cannot continue further and are just stuck. There are also curses and things here which you will need a cleric, one that is not dark aligned. There are things which can permanently change your character, adding or subtracting stats, and then there is also a dragon in there—”

“Whoa, hang on, what level is this?” I ask.

“You need to be level twelve to enter, and you can go in with a maximum of six players. It seems to scale to your levels, and it changes based on the party composition.” He stops and thinks. “Well, not totally different, more like small to medium changes here and there. It’s enough to guarantee that nobody will ever do a speed run of this though.”

“Let’s go get this quest,” I say, intrigued.

Walking out of the cave, we cross a small chasm with a sturdy wooden bridge. When I look down I see the inner side of the chasm is narrow and I can understand why they chose this spot—it is highly defensible. On the outside of the cave are players who are acting as guards, and they each nod at us. I can see they all are proudly wearing the alliance tag.

I follow Sauce and Briar farther into the canyon, through a side area I didn’t go before. There is a tiny town with a stone and wood inn and a little shop built right next to it. We go into the inn and I see it is standard—the bottom floor is a room and bar. This one was spotless and empty—except, at the end of the bar sits a disheveled-looking man alone. He glances at us nervously and might as well have a large gold question mark above his head.

I walk up to him and say, “Hi, you look like you could use some help. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Welcome to our small town of Bangor,” he says. “Though, it is not as lively as it normally would be. We have had our share of misfortune befall us lately. You see, we have a mine here that we dug, which burst into a catacomb. It was a long time ago, you may have heard the story.” He looks curiously at me for a second, then continues, “But, that has been taken care of already. The issue is that we continued on and hit something else, and now we have goblins pouring out of the mine.

“First the four miners went missing, then there was a band of six townsfolk that went into the mine to retrieve the miners and they did not return. They even had seasoned fighters among their number. When they didn’t come back out, we hired a band of five adventurers—with a mage and everything. They, too, have not returned.” He stops, looks around, and then says in a low voice, “I’ve never heard of goblins that could do that.”

The interface pings a little beep and I get a pop-up.

Quest: Through the mountain (story)

The mayor of Bangor has tasked you with finding three separate groups who came into contact with goblins in a mine that goes through the Qeynos Catacombs. You have been asked to find and rescue them or at least let the mayor know what happened to them.

Success: Unknown

Failure: Unknown

Bonus XP: 3,000 + 500xp/human NPC rescue (max 10,000xp).

Note: A story quest is part of the lore of this region and can shape the politics and even the appearance* of the NPCs and players who belong to a region. A story quest is a much more involved instance than what you may be expecting, which can have long-lasting and even permanent effects, both positive and negative, on your character. Be careful about choices you make as this is not a standard dungeon.

*These are limited rewards for Alliances and Clans only. New races and elemental affinities are potentially available for completion.

They weren’t kidding about the story quest thing; this is much more than just a simple quest. If I read this part about changing the appearance of NPCs right, this mean we can unlock some other player races. And an elemental affinity for our alliance members would be amazing. This could be very interesting…

I turn to Sauce and Briar; they are looking at me expectantly.

“This is incredible,” I say.

“Yep, that’s why we are keeping this area on lockdown until we are done with it,” Sauce says. “It’s also why your fortress is important, because when we complete the quest it can come with an affinity. Only a clan or alliance that control a fortress can take on an affinity and gain the aspect. We are pretty sure this one is air—based on a couple hints in the instance—which makes your fortress the top choice.”

“Ahh, I see.” I say. “I would do the same, but right now I need to know more about this instance and what we can expect. Maybe even you or one of your guys to walk us through what you have so far—”

“Uhhh,” Briar steps in, “Sauce and them want us to do it without help at first. We might find things they haven’t seen yet. Apparently it is pretty free form, and it’s better to go in without knowing what is up.”

“This isn’t just goblins is it?” I ask Sauce.

“Nope, not by a long shot. Expect to party wipe. A lot. You can also log out while in there, and when you log back in you will still be in the instance. You can spend days in there if you want.”

We walk back toward the entrance of the dungeon and I see that Bumblebzz and FaydeOut made it, as did Kian. With these three, myself, and Briar that makes five for our party.

“My guy Roll can join you guys if you want?” Sauce asks, waving the summoner over to us. “He hasn’t been in here yet as his class quests for summoner have kept him super busy. He wanted to do those first or he would have been dead weight. That will get you guys to six people going in, and your composition is good, two clerics, two fighters, a summoner, and a Shadow Runner. There are also some NPCs in the instance who will join your party if you do things in specific ways. You guys might just make it.

“And frankly, we want you to make it. We are kind of stuck on this instance and need someone to look at it with fresh eyes,” Sauce says. “We have been over and over this and we hit a wall. According to our info, [Art of War] clan will take the Leviathan fortress tonight or tomorrow. They are close and have been extensively running a similar instance to this. Theirs is farther up the coast, near the norther border.”

“There is one of these type of instances for each fortress?” I ask.

“Yeah, and nobody knows this, but it could be that the first one of these completed is what sets the affinity for the region. If [Art of War] completes their dungeon first then we could be in our mountain fortress with a water affinity, and water skills,. “It could be good in your flooded room, but otherwise we would get no bonus.”

“Roll, forget anything you might have heard from the other guys and try not to message anyone asking for info, okay?” Sauce asks the summoner.

“Sure thing,” Roll says, nodding. The gesture looks odd as he is wearing a strange pointed hat, long robes and has an ornate book on his hip. On closer inspection, the book looks almost as if it has a face with eyes closed as the main center of its leather cover. It has runes and magical symbols down the spine and around the edges, it is a soul-bound item which emanates power.

Roll stops as if remembering something and says, “Though, I don’t have much time right now. I need to get to sleep pretty soon—today was a long day.”

“Yeah, with school, it was a long day for all of us. Let’s jump in and get the lay of the land and pick back up in the morning,” I say.

I form up the party, and we check our gear and supplies as we walk to the entrance. With the Transfer Party to Story Instance screen open in front of me, I turn to Sauce. He walked us to the entrance by the cliff.

“A dragon, you say?” I ask. He nods.

“Well, I only look like a little girl,” I say.

I tap the button and we all shimmer and disappear, leaving little sparks where our feet had just touched the stones.

***

The world is black and then our cutscene starts. We are flying toward the entrance and the camera whips through an underground cavern around the ruins of an ancient city with a broken tower in the center. The rising orchestral music starts and the narrator, as annoying as always, says, “Our conquering hero needs to consolidate her power in the region. She has discovered her enemies are closer than she thought. The hero and her brave companions have found the entrance to Qeynos Catacombs, but quickly discover that the catacombs.” The camera zooms in to a goblin swinging down with a club, and it goes black.

My vision returns and I notice we are in a cavern. I see goblin footprints and blood everywhere. With my night vision I can see ahead of us just fine, but my companions light torches and take several extra ones from the wall. There is a statue of a goddess here, recessed into a wall. There are candles burning around its base as well. When I touch it, my interface informs me that the location is my respawn point.

The clerics apply basic bless and speed buffs to the party. These increase our armor and damage slightly; the speed increase is nice, as it stacks with my already fast attack speed.

In this group my role is as an advance scout and lock picker. And with my Shadow Runner advanced class I can also do some monster crowd control. I am also useful on large monsters with my dagger that triggers poison.

“It is super late and my brain is mush. I need to go,” Kian says finishing his buff.

“We’ve got to split also,” says Bumblebzz with a nod from FaydeOut.

“I want to look around a bit. My SAINT wasn’t as bad as yours today,” Briar says, readjusting his armor and repositioning his bag.

“I can scout ahead a bit for you,” I say, jumping into the shadows and starting down the long hallway with my dagger out. I open the voice chat and say, “We can communicate here. I’ll whisper if I see anything.”

I come upon a fork in the tunnel and take the right side and follow it for a good while. It comes into a dug-out cavern and a tunnel on the far side. There is evidence of long-ago mining here. Using perception, I don’t pick up anything besides small rodents. I move through the cavern and spot a dead-drop trap right in the center, a small wire which would free a hanging rock higher up. This would be a potentially fatal trap if sprung.

“Watch it in here,” I say over the comms. “I just found a nasty trap.”

“Thanks. If there are traps, I should stay here, since our clerics are both offline.”

I mark the wire with a line of stones so that nobody will accidentally set it off. I decide against safely springing the trap, as it would make a lot of noise, which would undoubtedly bring goblins.

“You know, Kian isn’t very happy with you adding us to an alliance without a vote, right?” he says. “He was bitching that you just took over and started doing things without talking with us when you began the recruiting. Then he kind of lost it with the alliance—that’s what set him off.”

“I spoke with him about it, he didn’t seem too upset,” I say as I finish up marking the trap. I slowly inch into the tunnel that continues on. “Briar, can you do me a favor? Promise me that if Kian decides to do something stupid, you’ll try to keep him out of trouble?”

“I’ll do my best. He can be an idiot—but, yes, I promise.”

“I’m going to hold you to that promise. Also, I’ll talk with Simon so you can have access to the fortress should something happen to me,” I stop and compose my words. “Josie is out to get us, although I don’t know what she is planning or what she is going to do.”

Briar nods, and feels like it is enough.

Walking into the tunnel I find the famous catacombs the miners in the quest description mined into, which are fully ransacked. Broken bones are everywhere from the battles the miners had with skeletons. I see murals and vases which, somehow, are not broken. The murals all look to be images of humans talking with types of celestial beings of air and being taken on fantastic adventures where they meet giants and other creatures. The murals have a distinctive style that looks Greek or Mesopotamian.

In what is nearly a straight line of rooms, I find the main crypt. Then, behind a giant sarcophagus, I see where the miners continued to dig. I see a problem, looking closer at the hole in the wall. Whoever opened this did the mining from the other side, which means the mayor was wrong. The goblins dug into the crypt and found the miners.

Carefully moving through the small passage, I enter a room and the floor lights up purple. A trap? There is a large covered pit within the colored space in my display. I peel back a corner of the cover and look in. I identify a Shrieker inside the pit among spikes. Based on my MMORPG SAINT, a Shrieker would make an intense noise that would get the attention of everything within half a mile of here. I slink past the pit and peer around a corner. Thirty yards away I see a group of goblins around a fire. I could take them, but if one got away we would be in trouble.

I carefully backtrack, keen to spot any traps I may have missed along the sides routes, and make it back to the starting room.

“I’ve scouted as far as I can ahead,” I say, sharing my map with Briar, who was going through in-game mails.

“[Art of War] is taking the Leviathan fortress, they are live-streaming it right now,” he says.

“I don’t want to see that.”

“Yeah, nothing to do here without healers. I’ll see you in the morning,” he says and logs off.

Standing alone in the darkness, I wish I could just do this myself. I wish I didn’t have to worry about other people and what they think. I know we have to beat this instance; we have to or it’s all over.

I stare into the shadows and whisper to the world, “I will not be weak.” Then, I log off.