Emperor climbed out of the crater using Minotaur's Charge. When he reached the top he saw everyone looking behind him and panicking. Looking behind Emperor noticed a giant mosquito coming onto him fast. Emperor thought to himself then yelled.

'Nothing like a little bit of a challenge as a warm up for the boss.'

-Everyone get ready for battle!

Leadership restored order in the raid group.

'So this is what makes leadership important for being a commander.'

Emperor backed away from the giant mosquito as it closed in. He didn't want to get hit by it's legs or mouth while it's over the crater still. If it was above level ground he and his allies could retaliate more effectively. The mosquito noticed what he was doing and sidled over another crater that was closer to him. The craters were like a minefield in this tense pre-battle.

Soon enough a barrage of mid-sized blood iron spikes slammed into the side of the mosquito. The mosquito got angry and turned its attention to the raid group and ambled towards them. The 20 remaining champions that tagged along with the group charged at the mosquito. They remembered in the last battle how the mosquito struggled to kill the people closest to it while the mosquito easily killed enemies that were at a distance. They were hoping to catch it off guard but once again it went over a crater foiling their plans.

It stabbed out with its mouth instantly killing one of the champions. Then it turned its attention back to the villagers and blood sorcerers. Some of them fled out of fear while most stood their ground due to Emperor's leadership stat being high for his level. The blood sorcerers let fly a bunch a small to mid-sized blood iron spikes at the giant mosquito. It simply shrugged off the attacks and came closer.

It swept its leg knocking over several of the villagers, injuring a few and even killing 2 of them. Then stabbed its mouth through one of the blood sorcerers. Once again a barrage of blood spikes hit the mosquito. The mosquito flinched allowing the villagers to pick themselves up. They immediately charged at the mosquito and began attacking its legs. The mosquito recovered and started to sweep its leg again but another barrage of blood spikes hit it. The blood sorcerers knew that high quality blood was a drop of the mosquito so they were drinking them constantly and spamming weak attacks to distract the mosquito.

The mosquito hesitated then raised its mouth to kill another blood sorcerer but the attacks on its legs started to add up with the champions joining with the villagers. The mosquito backed up across a crater and then started to ready its mouth to start picking them off from a distance. It stopped when it heard a strange sound reverberate behind it.

Skill use successful

A laugh was heard across the crater from Emperor. The mosquito turned around to see Emperor quite close to it.

-Minotaur's Charge

Emperor ran towards the mosquito while laughing. The mosquito decided to ignore Emperor and turned around to attack the raid group. This was because the blood sorcerers were still barraging it and agro'd it as a result. Also the laugh had the affect of making the mosquito not take him seriously.

Emperor jumped as soon as he reached the edge of the crater. This crater happened to be smaller than the rest so Emperor camped near it for an opportunity to attack. He hit the back of the giant mosquito and pushed it forward.

Critical hit

Status inflicted: Flinch

Emperor recovered from his jump attack and found himself on top of the mosquito. With its status affect it wasn't moving from its spot but was still hovering mid-air. He took this opportunity to jump into the air.

-Crush!

The skill increased Emperor's weight as he fell back onto the head of the mosquito. The mosquito sprawled its legs from its flinching status and a sudden and heavy impact on it. The crater seemed to swallow both of them as the mosquito couldn't keep airborne and fell to the center of the crater. It rolled down the slope flinging Emperor off its back and came to a stop right where the prisoners of the spikes once were.

The champions and villagers at the top of the crater didn't hesitate and jumped down following them. Some of them kept their balance and ran shakily down the slope, most tripped and did cartwheels and rolling logs down the slope painfully, two of them just slid down using gauntlets to slow their descent like in the game: The Prince of Persia, one just ran and jumped skipping the slope but got injured from the fall.

Alongside Emperor they picked themselves up and began ganging up on the fallen mosquito. They aimed for its wings so it wouldn't regain the skies and stood on top of it to restrain its movement. The blood sorcerers watched from the edge of the crater unable to do anything in fear of friendly fire. Anticlimactically the mosquito died a dog's death, unable to fight back in its last moments.

Level up X2

As it died in a burst of gray smoke it left behind gory remains alongside valuable loot. Another mouth-like straw was dropped so Emperor picked it up and put it in his physics defying bag. He then pocketed some of the blood packs to bring up to the blood sorcerers.

He then noticed that he was the only one able to leave the craters while the rest were stuck down there.

'No other way but to carry them. It would help if Cliff was here but he ran off somewhere during the fight.'

-Everyone down here pick up all the loot you can for now and I'll carry you all up...-

There was two of the champions casually climbing back up the crater. They were the same ones that used their gauntlets to go down with no complications. They looked back and smiled while looking down on them.

-If you could do that why didn't you help me free people?!

One of them replied "This is a skill called 'Roughing it' which allows us to do special actions with the right tools. But it requires a lot of stat points in the stats: Dexterity and Adaptability. So we're too weak to help you free people or carry those schmucks out of the hole."

'A useful skill but well balanced too with the requirements. My skills tend to rely on default stats like strength and endurance. But they are hard to use and completely useless at times.'

-Whatever, everyone when you're ready line up so I can carry you out.

Soon enough he started carrying people up over his shoulder. But one person refused to be carried that way.

"You're not going to carry me like a ragdoll, is there a more comfortable way to carry us?" random female villager

-Yeah I can carry you in front, princess carry style (laden with sarcasm).

"Sure that sounds good to me." random female villager

Emperor carried her up with another Minotaur's Charge then slid back down. The next person was a champion and he had the same complaint.

-Fine, I'll carry you the same way

"No that's just gay any way you put it" random male champion

-*Sigh*Then how should I carry you?

"A fireman's carry will do." random male champion

-How is carrying you that way any more comfortable than simply over the shoulder?! Scratch that I don't care anymore.

Emperor carried the rest up over the shoulder without caring about their own preferences. Including the champion that wanted to be carried fireman style.

At the top they redistributed the loot between themselves. The chitin spread about indiscriminately. Emperor was resting on the ground from fatigue, mainly from carrying all those people especially Schmied who was very heavy. Everyone passed the blood drops to the remaining blood sorcerers. Emperor then set off to free the remaining people stuck in the craters.

~several hours later~

Emperor painstakingly freed everyone from the craters. While doing so he introduced himself to the new villagers and even earned a few extra elegant stats from his greetings. Some of the freed villagers glared at his greetings and personality due to the elegant stat's drawback. They encountered several craters that were empty with broken spikes. Since there was more spikes in these craters it was assumed that they once held demi-humans like Cliff and Khan but were freed. But whether this was due to Cliff or their own monstrous strength was yet to be seen.

Quest Updated: Become the Lord of Sicheren Untergang

Quest: Become the Lord of Sicheren Untergang

Difficulty: C

Time limit: Unknown

You have the respect of the people and you've rescued the mysterious two-hundred missing villagers from the depths of Sangre Caverns. You may have lost many villagers but you've gained even more and now the villagers trust you more. Return to Sicheren Untergang with the villagers to become the true lord of Sicheren Untergang.

300/300 villagers respect you, 42 of them KIA

Rewards: Title upgrade, new title, ownership of Sicheren Untergang, village overview and construction options unlocked, half of the villages taxes, +500 respect

Failure: Unknown

Effects of Failure: Unknown

'So our forces now number 278 total in this raid group alongside a bunch of demi-humans that may help us later. They could already be challenging the boss now.'

-Let's hurry ahead

They all steeled themselves and entered the final tunnel in Sangre Caverns. This cavern was especially large compared to the others. This one had several side branching tunnels near the roof presumably leading to the other chambers. In other words shortcuts for the mosquitos. The amount of yellow bloodstones increased in number including one on the ground. Stagola immediately identified the mysterious rock and shared it with everyone.

Item: Gold Bloodstone

Rarity: Legendary

Normal bloodstones found in the Sangre Caverns contaminated by the bodily fluids of the boss of Sangre Caverns. The contamination gives it a yellowish color. More valuable due to the dark magic within it being stronger than a normal bloodstone.

Stagola then tossed the gold bloodstone away. With the description he couldn't bring himself to keep it. But one of the other champions ran and pocketed it, not caring at all what the description implied.

Soon enough they entered a base camp full of demi-humans. Satyrs and Minotaurs freely walked about within the camp roughly 50 of each type. The champions and villagers were in awe of all the demi-humans and their looks. Most didn't get a good look at Cliff nor fought with Khan. But even the few that did were looking around excitably. Emperor and Stagola simply smiled at the sight. Soon a demi-human sitting on a makeshift throne spoke out.

"Nice of you guys to join the party, today we're going to kill the yellow b*stard." said Khan

Chapter got delayed for several reasons:

1. Writer's block, had trouble thinking of what to write

2. Surgery, got all ready but ended up being delayed

3. Work, deadlines were coming

4. Other hobbies: I'm a gamer, reader, etc.

5 Holidays: preparations for Thanksgiving and Christmas

6. Birthday: birthday parties are everywhere since people get frisky on Valentines Day

7. Mobile: normally I'd do small drafts when I think of things so I don't forget via mobile devices but RoyalRoadl hasn't fixed all their bugs yet

8. Free games: really fun games over Xbox live come out every 2 weeks and this one was especially good: Red Faction Guerrilla

9. Rewriting: I scrapped a few ideas during chapters because they didn't fit well

10. Human Error: Once again lost the chapter due to computer crash but it was only 2 paragraphs so it wasn't big of a deal

Some clarifications:

1. People thought the 200 mysterious residents of the village were the demi-humans but no it was hinted before that they were simply kidnapped normal villagers.

2. The blood sorcerers have people from the villagers and champions so I tend to refer to them as a separate group. NPC's and players react to things differently so I feel the need to differentiate between them.

3. Legendary sounds impressive but this game is sadistic, it's actually quite low in the rarity rankings. One of a kind of course means unranked, the best and the worst, like an Ace card in Blackjack.

4. Blood packs, think of something like gory blood filled sacks rather than the things at the blood bank.

5. The monsters disappear into grey smoke for the setting without mature turned on. This is still present with mature to show something is dead but the loot is more realistic and gory. Someone without mature turned on would see the blood packs like a red potion maybe with a unique design to hint that its not a health potion. So mature is sorta like a skin pack for the game.

Graphic novel:

You've probably noticed in the chapter list I have a chapter named art contest and comic. The comic itself is currently on hiatus since I haven't found the time to draw any chapters. If I somehow reach the top 5 and get selected for the comic adaptation I'll simply release chapters with crappy art(since I'm bad with drawing people, much like ONE) and have the person redraw them with better art. But that's unlikely so I'll just try to find time to make a few chapters, trust me this FF expresses only 20% of what I could express with a comic.

http://www.royalroadl.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=5488

thinking about combining some of the older chapters into Volume 1, then after making the boss battle compacting all this into Volume 2. What do you guys think?