《Blood and Honor》Chapter 161- Bar Room Brawl!!
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Surface- Twin Rivers Region
Nation of Ebron
City of Easthaven- Twisted Rose Inn
"What the fuck? You don't treat a woman or lady like that." One of her guildmates stated as he strode up.
Jacob snorted, "If I see a lady I treat her like one. She is no lady by any stretch of the word, but I am sure you can attest how much she is a woman." Jacob replied with a sneer.
Before her knight and shining armor could respond, another Child of the Light spoke up, "Enough. We all know PvP is not allowed everywhere within the city. If you really want to fight, take it to the Arena or outside of town." The man was older and based on his robes, a Priest or Mage type.
The White Knight smiled, "Yeah, you and me, let's go now. Or are you a coward??" Jacob smiled and chuckled darkly while Ava paled. Jacob quickly invited Fred and Jax into his party while looking over at the bartender.
"BARROOM BRAWL, I got the tab," Jacob told him causing the proprietor sigh and nod as he activated some magic to protect his workers and the bar itself. Jax and Fred quickly accepted as Jacob stepped forward.
ALERT!!!
BARROOM BRAWL RULES ARE IN EFFECT!! LEAVE, STAY OUT OF THE WAY, OR FIGHT!!!
ALERT!!!!
Jacob slammed his fist into the white knight's face, he heard bones and cartilage snap and crack as he went down. Ava cursed and tried to stand but Jacobs' foot lashed out breaking her jaw and causing her to scream in pain. Other Children of the Light rushed Jacob but Jac and Fred quickly joined them.
Barroom brawl rules were simple, no skills or abilities, no equipment, magic, or potions of any kind. Your fighting depended on your own Strength, Constitution, and will to beat the other guys down and stay standing. It also depended on how many people you brought into the fight. Jacob had 6 guildmates plus Jax and Fred against about an even number of Children of the Light. Two of their numbers were already down though and Darren and his people were running up behind them quickly.
5 minutes later the fight was mostly done and three tables, eight chairs, some plasters, and siding were the only real damages Jacob could see as he walked over to the moaning Ava, "I hope betraying me was worth it bitch. You still owe me 500,000 Gold for that Tiara WE, you and me, stole. You know the one that you turned over to the Children and started your career on. All the lies you based upon...Stay the fuck away from me Ava O'Conner." Jacob hissed in her ear. She tried to say something but Jacob slammed her face into the floor cracking the beams and ending the fight.
Jacob looked at the bartender and signaled the fight was over. "You owe me 75 Gold, 83 Silver, and 32 Copper for damages." Jacob handed him a purse with 100 Gold causing the bartender to smile and thanked Jacob and his people for coming and to come back whenever he felt like it. A lot of people didn't like the Children of the Light, they were stuck up arrogant pricks and were number Four in the Top 10 guilds.
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"Well that was interesting, but it explains your relationship with those guys a little bit," Fred responded.
Jacob rolled his eyes, "Let's just say I have issues with my ex, however, I would not be the man I am today without her pushing me down this road. So we are about to leave, I will be in touch. Remember, don't dick around on this next contract." Jacob stated as he and the other Seekers walked into the night leaving the two brothers amused but happy even though they had even more questions than before.
Surface- Storm Break Bay Region
Nation- Empire of Night
Anchorhead- Sea Lords Keep
Jacob entered the Control Room and looked at the map of the Region and the two glowing Red Skulls signifying two dungeons. Near them were two small flags, each blood red also. "Tell me the situation General."
"We have had multiple complaints that groups of players are being ambushed and killed or blackmailed into paying for access or completing these two dungeons by Player Killers. We have dispatched patrols to the area, but they either flee or enter the dungeon where we cannot go. I was wondering if your guild could assist us in bringing these Immortals to justice?" Brox asked.
Jacob glanced at Darren, "Do you know the levels and classes of these Pkers?" Darren asked the Orc who nodded.
"Mainly Rogue types, with three Warriors, and two Mage types. Levels 25 to 42 and they had twenty people in their group." Brox stated.
"How do you want to do this?" Jacob asked the Rogue.
Darren considered it before responding, "Have a regular dungeon team go in and have my infiltration team nearby on standby when they go in and come out. Have a century of the Legion nearby as well to keep things under control. The point will be to capture as many as possible, I am sure Abraxxus can come up with a potion quickly to do it if he hasn't already done so. Clear one dungeon at a time until we get them all."
Jacob nodded and looked at Brox, "I will make the necessary orders, a Century will be standing by the main gate waiting for you Darren when you are ready to move out."
"What do we know about these two dungeons?" Jacob asked. Darren rolled his eyes and touched the strategy map bringing up the information.
Name: Black Cursed Keep
Age: Young
Level: 35-40
Recommended Party Size: 5
Name: Salken Mines
Age: Young
Level: 38-42
Recommended Party Size: 5 to 10
"Ok...so the Black Cursed Keep is up first since its closer and easier to deal with. Who do we have in the level range that is here or nearby currently?" Jacob asked
Darren brought up something on his interface and started scanning through it, "We got 6 people in the city, including us and two in Middlebrough."
"Do we have the right people to make a traditional group of 5, Tank, three DPS, and a Healer?" Jacob asked as he read through the info on the two Dungeons and the history on the Wiki. The Black Cursed Keep was full of Undead while the Salken Mines was full of Gnolls, neither had complicated mini-bosses or Dungeon Bosses.
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"Yeah, but Tarren is our only Paladin that meets the level and he isn't here. So...' Darren looked at Jacob who sighed and nodded, 'We have a Thief, Assassin, Ranger, Priest, Engineer, and a Battle Rager to choose from."
Jacob looked at him pointedly, "You as well my friend."
Darren snorted, "Nope, I am going to be coordinating my team with the Legionnaires and I hate monster Undead, they give me the creeps."
Jacob frowned at him before considering his choices, "Ok give me the Battle Rager or Assassin, your choice, Engineer, Ranger, and of course the Priest." Jacob told him and Darren immediately started sending out messages.
"The Battle Rager is in the middle of the quest so you go the Assassin. Everyone will meet you at the front gates of Anchorhead in 30 minutes. The Engineer has experience leading Dungeon teams, so he can call the shots. Go get those bags of bones and rotten zombies!!" Jacob narrowed his eyes at Darren before turning and leaving.
Black Cursed Keep
The Keep had not been that bad so far, and the others were a nice change of pace with a whole lot more Skills and Abilities, but getting used to each other was another thing Jacob thought. They had almost wiped on the first Mini-Boss, a level 37 Flesh Golem, but they had pulled through thanks to having a Priest after that everything smoothed out. The gold and experience were steady, loot was ok but nothing any of them could use so it would go to the Guild Armory or be stripped for materials. The Dungeon Boss did drop a ring for Necromancers that was Rare. They only had one in the guild so far and he was at level 17, so it was something he could grow into eventually.
Emerging from the Dungeon 14 players waited for them, all of the Red tagged meaning PKers. "Looks like you all had a good time in there. Now its time to pay the tax for using the Black Cursed Keep. 50% and the Dungeon Boss loot sounds fair.' The group leader stated as she twirled her daggers, 'Do it quickly and nobody has to be sent to the graveyard." Jacob snorted as he stowed Moonlight in his inventory and pulled the club from his inventory and equipped it. Spoiler: Spoiler
Name: Truncheon of Justice
Level: Rare (Scales)
Damage: 80-100
Properties: Decreases all incoming damage by 50%
Properties: Upon striking a target, you have a 75% chance of disorienting them for 5 minutes
Properties: Upon Striking a target you have a 100% chance of placing a Hunters Mark on them for 10 minutes
Requirement: Empire of Night Faction and/or Empowered by the local governor to carry Item, Strength 10
Durability: 500/500
Description: Truncheons are the physical manifestation of lawgivers around the world. They use these items to physically disable enemies so they will face justice for their crimes.
Note* Once you have completed the mission given by the government, item will disappear from inventory. Can only be used in service of the Empire of Night against Law Breakers within the Empires borders. Jacob and three others of his party equipped the items quickly while the Priest stepped back and started casting spells. "OH SHIT RUN" was the last thing the PKer tried to turn and run as Jacob triggered Charge and slammed the stick in the back of her head causing her to collapse as if he tasered her. Others rushed him but his party quickly stepped up and joined him as Darren led his team to surround and disable those who were trying to flee.
Within 1 minute the fight was over and black armored Legionnaires were swarming the area, three wagons were with them. All of them had caged bolted in the back as the legionnaires lined up the prisoners placing Prison Collars and shackles on them. "Whats the finale count of injured on our side and captured for them?" Jacob asked Darren.
"We had 3 minor injuries on our side and we managed to get 17 of the 20. Legionnaires and some of my team are sweeping the area now to see if they can find the last 3." Darren replied.
"It's better than nothing, we have one more group to clear out, hopefully, they were not warned by this one," Jacob replied as he and his party prepared to leave again but the Battle Rager the Thief joined them with a Dark Druid that wanted to tag along. All had been issued a Truncheon in case we ran into the Pkers before we hit the Salken Mines but who knew. Darren just asked them to give his team a 20-minute head start to get in position if they were there before they went in.
Outside Salken Mines
The second group had not waited and they had almost 30 members present when they ambushed Jacob and his party. Without the Truncheons and their back up, the whole party would have probably been sent to the graveyard. As is, Pete, the Engineer that led the first dive, was their only casualty. Everyone else was hurt badly but survived long enough for Darren and his people to surround their attackers and finish them off.
"Before you ask, all your party is up and running again despite these guys best efforts. We captured 28 of the 30 members. The two that got away were tagged though and we got two squads of Legionnaires in pursuit until they get to the border. All those we captured tonight will go before Governor Saltrake and General Brox tomorrow morning. Each will get a minimum of 1-month hard labor and a 1,000 Gold fine for what they have been doing. They will also be placed on the do not allow back within the borders list." Darren reported as he headed toward the wagons.
Secret Kingdom Quest Completed: Pursuing Justice
Description: Working with your soldiers and fellow Immortals, you hunted down two groups of Immortals that had been extorting and killing Immortals that were diving dungeons within your Empire. You managed to capture the majority of the offenders with minimal loss of life.
Rewards: 50,000 Kingdom Experience, 1,000 Gold
Jacob dismissed the pop-up and watched as the Truncheon in his hand fade away. Jacob re-equipped Moonlight and summoned Star as he headed back to Anchorhead.
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In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
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