At the entrance of the mine for form a party. The party system in Wing’s to Tomorrow allow anyone to pick up any item that is dropped from monsters. The experience is set so that the person you lands the killing blow on a monster receives the full 100% experience that they would receive for killing it solo. The other players receive 50% of the experience provided they took part in the battle. Support classes like a bard, or healer receive 60% of the experience as well. This means that Rosetta and I will be receiving 60% each from every monster unless we manage to kill any, at which point we will receive 100%.

My blade dancer class is a subclass of dancer which is a support class.

After we were all in the party we started our journey through the mine. It was only 2 minutes of walking before we ran into our first monster. It was a black scorpion about 80 centimetres long and 25 centimetres tall. Its long black tail protruded over its head with a sharp spike on the end with a green stick substance on the very tip. The tail was longer than the scorpion itself making it look very menacing. The scorpion had long pitch black claws in front of it ready to block attacks.

Rosetta quickly crawled up behind me and grabbed me with a quite shriek. Rosetta hated all kinds of insects and bugs, so an overgrown scorpion was not her favourite enemy to face.

Pushing Rosetta back I moved to the front next to Kairen and unsheathed my rapier. Zach came in between me and Rosetta and prepared to cast a spell.

Zach drew his shield and readied his doru I order to strike the scorpion. Zach started off by shouting some kind of war cry “YAAAAAAAAA.”

Hearing the cry the scorpion launched its tail in an instant being blocked by Kairen’s shield. Noticing the speed of the scorpion’s strike I began my dance of the sylph raising party evasion.

Zach finished his spell and cast a white lightning bolt from the tip of his staff. The bolt was aimed at the head of the scorpion but, as it got closer it curved up and hit the tip of its tail as if it was a lightning rod.

Kairen and I began our assault stabbing at the scorpion yet most of our attacks bounced off dealing next to no damage. We changed our attack angles to try and hit the chinks in the scorpion’s carapace although only one in every ten hits landed. It is very difficult to aim at a pin sized gap and so luck played a huge part in this fight.

Zach finished his next spell, paralyse shot. This spell works similar to static except it targets only a single enemy causing a much higher chance of staggering and paralysing an enemy.

The spell took effect immediately and the scorpion stopped attacking. I took this time to slow my attack and aim carefully at the chink near its head. My strike hit causing a strange chirping sound. The sound caused me to shudder, yet Kairen followed up with a strike where mine hit completely impaling the scorpion causing it to turn into grey dust.

Relieved that the scorpion was no more, Rosetta collapsed.

Our weapons had taken considerable damage from hitting the hard shell of the scorpion. I told everyone to hand me any equipment they needed to repair and began repairing. Being level one in my repair skill, I could only restore an item to 30% of its max durability. This left the items I repaired with lower durability meaning we had to be more careful.

During my trip with Zach and the caravan, I repaired everyone’s equipment regularly causing my repair skill to gain a lot of experience and was about to reach the next level. After repairing all the gear It finally reached level two

*triing*

Repair Beginner lvl 2Allows you to repair equipment

Repairs up to 40% of an items maximum durability

Mana cost: 10 + items maximum durability

Because our weapons were at low durability we discussed a strategy to take down the scorpions. We decided to hold back the enemies until Zach could paralyse them. This technique is generally referred to as tanking. After Zach manages to paralyse them, we will strike at the chinks in their armour near the head aiming down through it to strike the heart. The heart is the only place on a scorpion that can cause a fatal hit yet it was protected by an armoured carapace making it hard to hit.

We put this strategy into practice dispatching three solitary scorpions with ease. I continued to maintain equipment after battle due to the durability loss from fighting heavy armoured creatures.

We finally ran into our first pack of scorpions. There were only three, one less than us.

We prepared our formation and Kairen began tanking. The three scorpions attacked all at once as if they could telepathically communicate with one another. Three tails launched simultaneously at Kairen at different spots. Kairen managed to take the first tail on the shield. The second tail flew straight past him barely missing him, and the third tail grazed his leg. Kairen was instantly poisoned by the tail grazing him.

Rosetta seeing Kairen get hit, snapped out of her fear and cleansed the poison from his wound with a green curative light.

Zach managed to paralyse one of the scorpions, and I went in to try attack it. As I lunged to strike at it, a tail flew from another scorpion and hit me in the arm causing me to drop my sword. a white light enveloped me and my wound began to heal.

“We can’t hit it when there’s two others defending it!” I shouted.

“Hold them back, I will try something” Rosetta yelled back.

Rosetta began chanting a long spell while Kairen began tanking. I ran to pick up my rapier and began hitting back the tails that were aimed at Kairen.

Rosetta finally finished her chant and shouted “Illusion of duplicity!”

The area around us light up with a dim purple light and standing next to us was identical copies of ourselves fighting with the scorpions.

“Hurry, this spell drains my mana extremely fast, I can’t hold on for long”

Kairen retreated a bit behind the illusions and Zach cast static on the scorpions. The scorpions staggered and we struck the paralysed scorpion killing it. We then began to strike at the remaining two scorpions using the illusions to our advantage finally managing to kill them just before Rosetta ran out of mana.

After the battle, we had to take a break. I pulled out a pot and began to cook some of the scorpion meat spicing it with some of the herbs and spices I had on me.

In the meantime Rosetta meditated to speed up her mana recovery. Zach and Kairen started chatting to one another; they seemed to get on well together and even added each other as friends.

Finally the food I cooked was ready. The food recovered some of our fatigue although even with my intermediate cooking it was chewy and quite horrible. Because I had never cooked with scorpion before, I had no idea how to prepare it lowering the taste and quality of the food.

Having eaten and repaired our equipment we continued to tack the mines.

After 3 days in the mines battling scorpions, we came to a round chamber with a path guarded by a new type of enemy. The enemy was 2 metres tall and 3 metres long. it was as if a scorpion and a human fused together. The creature sat on eight legs, with a huge tail reaching out behind with a fifty centimetre long barb on the end. From the front was a humanoid body with black shells covering it and on the end of its hands were massive claws similar to a mud crab.

“Humans!” the creature called out.

The scorpion ran up and targeted Kairen due to his war cry. The scorpion rained down blows with his claws causing shockwaves on Kairen’s shield. Straining to hold the weight of the blows, Kairen began to get pushed back.

I ran behind the scorpion and began dance of the warrior to increase our damage. Due to the thick carapace, I didn’t think that our blows would be able to pierce even the chinks in its armour.

Zach cast paralyse shot continuously bombarding the scorpion to no avail. Rosetta had her hands full trying to keep Kairen alive. I kept striking any opening I saw at the back of the scorpion aiming primarily at its legs to try reach the chinks. In all my time playing the beta, I had never seen a creature such as this.

When the scorpion lost about a quarter of its health, it struck out at Kairen and hit him with its tail on the hand. Kairen dropped his doru which was held in the hand and became unable to use the hand. His hand was paralysed from one strike.

“Watch out for its tail! It can paralyse us” Kairen yelled.

Immediately hearing that I changed target from the legs to the tail trying to cause it to be severed from a rain of blows.

Zach realising that the scorpion could paralyse and likely being immune changed up his spells to a standard lightning bolt targeted at the scorpion’s head.

After five blows to the tail, the tail was severed reducing the threat of the scorpion. The spot where the tail fell from was open flesh finally giving me a proper target. Zach’s lightning caused the scorpion to be dazed for a couple seconds after each hit allowing us to finally dispatch the scorpion.

We continued down the mines clearing the scorpions for the next two days running into groups of normal and humanoid scorpions. Many times Kairen almost died and Rosetta was forced to use illusions to distract the scorpions but with each battle we grew a little stronger gaining 7 levels during our time in the mines.

We finally came to the last area of the mine. Inside was a creature only seen in myths, a manticore. The manticore was huge at an amazing 7 metres long with the body of a lion. Its fur war a shade of crimson red, and its face was that of a beautiful red headed man. Coming from the back of it was a massive black scorpion like tail with three sharp spikes on the end. The tail was at least 9 metres long dripping a yellowy green substance. The manticore's neck was just over 1 foot long, slender yet covered in its red fur. Coming from its head was a mane of red flowing hair and a regal beard that you might imagine on a Scandinavian Viking.

“Who dares enter my lair!” the Manticore shouted sounding as if a trumpet was blaring.

Immediately behind us an army of scorpions and their humanoid counterparts came and blocked the entrance that we came through.

The manticore shifted its weight onto its rear legs and launched from one side of the 50 metre long room to the other in less than a second flooring Kairen in an instant. The manticore then proceeded to slash at Kairen’s head immediately being decapitated and the head flying across the room with a stream of blood spraying from his neck. His head and body proceeded to disappear in a cloud of grey dust.

Rosetta screamed and collapsed at the sight of Kairen dying.

The manticore proceeded to jump and slash Rosetta through the chest instantly killing her before turning its attention towards Zach who launched a bolt of lightning at the manticore.

The Manticore retaliated by shooting a spike from its tail which hit Zach in the chest causing him to convulse in a seizure like state. The manticore then ran up and pierced him through the heart with its tail which had replaced the launched spike with a new one.

The manticore then turned its attention to me and I charged. I headed straight at the group of scorpions that blocked the entry that we came through only to be hit in my back by a spike paralysing me making me lay on my back.

The manticore walked up to me slowly and opened its mouth showing three rows of shark like teeth. I closed my eyes as the manticore leaned forward and started to slowly eat me alive.

The pain was excruciating and it felt like hours before I finally blacked out and a message of relieve entered my vision.

You have diedYour experience will reduced to 0

You will lose 1 level

You will lose 5% of skill experience from all skills (skill levels will not be lost)

You cannot log in for 24 hours real wolrd time

For one week after logging back in you will have a 10% penalty to all stats

If you are over level 100 a random item can be dropped

chapter 9: Rosetta and Elyssa add each other as friends in the tea house

prologue & chapter 7: modified the capsule and the way in which it works. I didn't like just saying a capsule because it makes no sense as to how it works.

chapter 6: added a mana cost for repair skill

I hope the changes are welcome.