21 days remain of contest A, Monday.

Waking up, I am still exhausted; the headset triggers muscle groups to keep you from getting sore or cramping, but with extended use causes soreness. One bonus of the muscle triggering is that it helps avoid bed sores—an actual problem with early full immersion—and I am sure there are other possible issues.

I wonder if my persona still is helping to keep the fortress going while I am logged off in the instance, or if I have to log off in the fortress for that part to work.

I have a few minutes to wait for Kian to log in, so I go through our new recruits. We have a good number who are joining now that we have formed the alliance. The current number of clan members in [Nightfallers] is forty-six, with twenty-nine logged in right now. With the [BallzDeep] clan adding their members to the alliance has reached 78 members which feels like a lot. I had anticipated that having an early fortress would give a perceived advantage, and this shows it—

With a pop Kian appears in a brilliant flash of electrical light. I look him over; his hair is a little different here than in real life, it’s like the game combs it for him. He is in his Strider equipment. I had watched him using some gear yesterday that I hadn’t seen before—like crampons for climbing—which allow him to move a lot faster than I can, while climbing

“Morning,” he says, giving me a funny look as I stare at him at him, “You about ready to go in there and just nuke that thing? I was thinking we could do a little distraction to lure them all out of the cave.”

“Oh?” I ask

“There are some old wagons outside this cave, that I assume belonged to the stone giants, which we can use. Let’s get one of those down the road to the rise in front of the where the goblin den is. Then, we light it on fire—and I have some oil—it rollst down there, as we duck to the side. Once the cave entrance is in flames, we sneak in.”

I nod. That is a solidly lunatic plan to get in through the front. There are multiple little entrances around the main one, so it should be simple. If not, I can pull a transmutation card and see what happens.

The others log in, but are in different parts of the valley. They had not had any luck yesterday. I scroll through the party chat log and it seems they have spotted something yesterday that looked promising. They are going to climb to a cave, far up the side of one of the mountains. We discuss any other possible locations and that the lake might have one. The lake goes into a cave at the other end of the valley. There is a dock on the lake with several boats and lanterns, an obvious invitation for us to follow.

“Watch for smoke at this end of the valley. There should be a lot of smoke filling the sky,” I say

“We will. Good luck, you guys,” Briar says. “Once you smash that thing, get the hell out of there, that dragon will fry your ass.”

Four hours later we have our cart at the top of the rise. The steering is locked, so it will go in a straight line down to the front of the goblin cave entrance. Kian produces a bottle of special smoke oil and pours it all over the hay and extra wood we had piled in the cart.

“Okay, let’s light this thing, then run and get into place,” I say.

Kian pulls a flint out of his pack and strikes it once, lighting the huge wagon, and then jumps down. We lean into it, and it starts rolling down the hill just as smoke starts to billow out.

“Okay, run!” I say as I dart off the side of the overgrown road and into the woods and thicket and keep moving as fast as I can. The flaming wagon is outpacing me now and heading directly for the front of door of the goblin hole.

Just as the burning cart is nearing the front entrance several goblins appear on worgs—a patrol. The flame-cart hits a bump and goes airborne, smashing into them before they can move. The sizzling stew of flaming hay and sticks rains down on the goblins, who are unable to wipe off the oil. When they attempt to wipe it away, it burns even hotter. Apparently the thinner this oil is, the hotter it burns. Goblin screams fill the air.

As we run up to get into position, one of the worgs sees us and turns a burned head to begin to charge. It falls with an arrow sticking out of an eye socket. I look to see that Kian had loosed an arrow in mid-run—a Strider indeed. He really learned a lot while he was off doing his own thing for a couple days there. I should have paid more attention.

“To the side,” he snaps in a low voice, and we duck to the side where there is a small entrance. I dive in and roll into the shadows. In front of me is a surprised goblin, and as I come out of the roll I raise a knife and slide it between its ribs. At the same time an arrow goes into its neck.

“Okay, let’s move up and see what is going on,” I say without stopping. I enter the shadows with a quick side-step motion. I glide through the darkness and gloom as I enter the main cavern. I glance to the right and admire our chaos; I can see that the fire is even spreading into the cavern. What the hell kind of oil did Kian put on that thing?

“Down the side,” Kian says in a whisper.

We move between sleeping areas and worg pens, off the main paths in the cavern. All the goblins have moved to the front to see what is going on. With a side glance I see that the Worgmother and the chieftain are also moving up to investigate the fire in the front. We slip past the main group of the goblins and get to the structure we think is a temple. Kian downs a guard out front; I take care of one just inside. Through the entrance of the small structure, we face another shard. It has piles of leather-wrapped bone totems in front. Kian swaps his gear to Cleric, since we are out of combat, and hefts his hammer.

“Let’s take this thing out. Keep them off me,” he says as he raises the huge two-handed hammer. He hits the huge crystal shard, and it makes a deep resounding thud. Then he continues hitting it harder and harder, each hit making the deep sound vibrate the entire cavern.

Thud, thud, thud. He smashes on the crystal, the cavern vibrating like a tuning fork.

I can hear the goblins going crazy. Stepping back to the doorway, I see a mob heading our way. The Worgmother and at least fifteen worgs with riders are all bolting across the cavern floor, leaping past fire pits and knocking over pens. The mass of goblins are screaming and waving weapons. I don’t have a lot of options of what to do.

Thud, thud—

I pull out the deck of transmutation. Then, stepping outside of the little temple, I pull a card and hold it up to my face.

***

I am faced with the image of what looks like an armored bear tearing apart a knight. My body feels like it is in a mixer as I change, warp and re-wrap my skin onto a larger skeleton. Everything grows hair and then forms bone plates on the outside. The interface says Armored Cave Bear. I watch a goblin arrow hit me, bouncing off. I realize that this animal I have become is flagged as enraged, it just lit up in the interface—

I am claw and might, I am wrath of a mother.

Goblins and worgs fly everywhere as I see the Worgmother and her rider square off with me and nock a wicked-looking arrow. I smash a worg, ripping its throat out, then the arrow hits me between armored plate and buries deep.

You have been hit for 48 damage (+poison) by Goblin Chieftain.

Thud, thud—

With my front paw I grind a goblin rider into the ground, killing it with my weight. Then, I move toward the Worgmother and the Chieftain, who both back up as the other worgs hit me.

You have been hit for 37 damage (+poison) by Goblin Chieftain.

Thud, thud—

A final thud happens with a release, the power escaping. The broken shard’s energy floods out in a wave of force, like a sigh of vitality that has been pent up for eons. The notification for us about the updated quest flies through my vision, although I barely see it.

Fenmalain Soul Crystal destroyed (2/6)

I will attack Kian in this state, so I turn off the transmutation—which does nothing.

It is greyed out—Ginga, what now! There is a notification about the enrage status being reset in several seconds. I wait as I smash more goblins and hear a distant roar.

I click the transmutation off and fall to the floor, bleeding profusely and still poisoned. The bear had an immense constitution, I do not. Kian grabs me from behind and pushes me to the side as he swings his hammer into a worg’s chin.

The entrance of the cavern explodes as the front of the dragon enters the cavern, breathing steam which melts goblins and worgs mid-step. The whole cavern is full of smoke now; the wagon had created a mess of fire and burned like some smoke-bomb-napalm. Now, a creature of fire—of the darkest depths of the earth—was here breathing steam and making the air a thick fog of humid soot.

I am dragged to the side of the cavern and up the little trail. We go back down to where we ran along the small ledge and Kian pushes me along, not bothering with the shadows. Occasionally I see a flash of light, through the smoke and fog that is choking the main cavern. We enter a smaller cave and get in far enough to be safe. Kian’s arm tattoos light up and I feel the poison lift from me, and my bleeding wounds pull together as they begin to heal. He adds an extra buff and does a few other spells to make sure I am not cursed as well. All the while we can hear roars and screams from the cavern as a community of goblins is exterminated by a creature of legend.

The screams and howls quiet, so we go to where the cave exits out on the side of the chasm and wait. After several minutes the dragon, looking entirely unharmed, takes flight with a roar and glides slowly to the center of the valley.

“Did you guys make it?” Briar asks over the communications channel.

“I think we did,” Kian says. “I think we did.”

Once the air clears after a couple hours, Looting the cavern takes us a lot of time kicking through ash. Almost everything in the cavern was smashed and covered in liquefied goblin. We manage to only salvage several items we can sell for about 400 gold at the market.

Digging through the cavern rubble in a part near the central raised chieftain area, I find the remains of humans in smashed cages. After I call Kian over, we count seven bodies and then we get a quest update.

Through the mountain (story) : Objectives 8/15

“Did we do something wrong here? Did we miss rescuing these people?” I ask no-one in particular.

“I’m not sure,” Kian responds flatly, looking at the bodies smashed in the charred cage.

We make our way back to the stone giants' cave and being exhausted we bid farewell and log off.