There was darkness. Marcus was, for a lack of better description, floating in the darkness. He wondered where he was. He wondered what had happened. He tried to move but could not. He could not see. He could not hear. He could not smell. He could not even feel anything. He tried to shout but could not. He felt as if he did not even have a body. What was happening?

Then suddenly there was a flash and a notification appeared in the darkness.

Do you want to revive?

Yes No

Revival cost Level multiplied by 100 units

He thought Yes. The next moment he was on hard ground. He could feel it. He heard voices, indistinct but he clearly heard them. There was the smell of food and something else which he could not identify. He opened his eyes and his vision swam. He closed them again.

“Are you all right?” asked someone.

Marcus dared to open his eyes again. The world was not spinning now. That was progress. He looked in the direction of the voice. It was Destiduous. Marcus asked, “What happened?”

“You died”, replied Destiduous, “We resurrected you through the stone. Now you are alive and shall be a bit disoriented for some time.”

“That explains the nausea.”

Marcus stood up gingerly and sat down on one of the stools nearby. He was not confident if he could remain standing.

Marcus said, “Can you tell how long I was dead?”

Destiduous shrugged. He said, “My job is to bring an adventurer back. I get a notification every time I have to resurrect an adventurer. If I am at The Flying Sow, I can revive the adventurer fast. Although, I must admit, I am not at The Flying Sow all the time. I do have a life. And that fares poorly for some adventurers in certain cases. You are lucky though. I was just thinking of stepping out when I got the notification of your resurrection. So what happened?”

“Oh, the usual”, replied Marcus nonchalantly, “Adventuring on a major quest. The antagonist is in the middle of a demon summoning ritual. Try to save a damsel in distress. Get surrounded by enemies. Die for being noble and a fool.”

Destiduous had paled. He said, “Demon summoning?”

Marcus nodded. Destiduous tried to say something but stopped. They had both heard it. There was an explosion. And Destiduous got a notification.

He quickly performed the resurrection spell, touching the resurrection stone. Two adventurers came spilling out of the stone. Literally. It was as if the stone had opened to throw them out. Marcus recognized them. It was Oril and Kyrie.

“What happened”, Marcus asked after some time when Oril and Kyrie had oriented themselves.

Oril replied, shaking his head, “I think Charthuk was successful in summoning demons. Actually, I think he summoned a demon lord.”

“Which one”, asked Destiduous.

Oril shrugged and Kyrie said, “Can’t say. We died.”

Marcus said, “We need to go back. Stop this demon lord.”

The others nodded. Destiduous said, “NAIF has already started evacuating Solaris. All the non-adventurers got the notification. I got it too. I think I will be staying till an official from NAIF comes to take over my duty. We need someone to revive the dead adventurers.”

His voice was shaking by the end of his short speech and Marcus knew why. Adventurers can revive after they die. Non adventurers do not revive. Destiduous staying here would be a bit of suicide for him.

Oril clapped a hand on Destiduous’ shoulder. He said, “Do not worry. There is still time till the demon lord comes up here. The smithy is at least a few kilometers away from this inn. And we had gathered all the adventurers. The progress of the demon lord has to be slow.”

Destiduous nodded but then paled. He looked as if he was reading the notifications.

Destiduous said, “Better hurry. I got five dead adventurers now to revive.”

Oril swore. Then Marcus, Kyrie and Oril ran out of The Flying Sow. They hoped that they would be on time to defeat the demon lord.

***

Orin looked at the demon, no, the demon lord standing atop The Fire Forge. It seemed that they were unsuccessful in stopping Charthuk from summoning anyone. Charthuk had managed to summon the demon lord on such few sacrifices. Orin wondered if Charthuk had summoned demons, then they would have been easily overwhelmed. A demon lord would definitely be equivalent to 100 such similar level demons, Orin assumed.

He looked at the battlefield as that was what it was. He was directing the attack about a few buildings away from the smithy and was standing on the roof of a two storied building. His brothers were not with him and Oril had died in the original explosion. Oril would be back, Orin was sure, but it would take some time. Till then Orin wondered how much destruction the demon lord would cause.

The demon lord had already obilirated the area surrounding the smithy up to ten metres. The Fire Forge was still standing but Orin wondered for how long. He examined the demon lord.

Mára the Desirer

Demon Lord, Level 20

Health 9,286/10,000

That was one huge health bar. They had already lost five adventurers after Mára had been summoned and they had hardly made any dent in his health. Mára stood at ten feet tall with six arms and horse’s legs. His visage was completely red with four eyes and tusks protruding out of his mouth. He was completely bald but wore a metal chain with a sharp edge on his head. Each of the arm carried a weapon; a sword, an axe, a mace, a flail, a dagger and a short spear.

Mára was formidable. He did not have any defence but he was fast and could attack and dodge the adventurers well. They needed a solid strategy to defeat him.

Mára sent a wave of power destroying the smithy. Orin could see the adventurers near Mára and the demon lord itself collapse. Mára got up. The adventurers did not.

Orin swore. They needed a bloody miracle and fast. Else, they were going to lose and Solaris would fall.

***

Marcus held on for his dear life as Oril swerved the Mechanical Quadruped that they had borrowed from Destiduous. Time was of the essence as they had to get back to the summoning site fast. Even then it took them a few minutes to reach there.

When they reached, there was an explosion of power and they were all thrown off the Quadruped. Marcus was the first to stand up. He had lost 10 points of health. He looked around and helped Kyrie stand up. Oril was beneath the Quadruped. Marcus and Kyrie helped get it off him.

When they turned towards the smithy, they saw a horrible site. The demon lord was walking towards the group of adventurers surrounding him. The adventurers had trouble defeating him. Marcus looked at the demon lord’s name and health bar and swore.

Mára was having an easy time killing the adventurers. The adventurers hardly put a dent in his health bar. It currently read at 8,901/10,000.

Oril said, “Only a thousand points of health down in so many minutes! It has to be at least five minutes since this demon lord Mára was summoned. Why has he suffered such less damage?”

Marcus did not say anything but tried to access the net through the utility belt. He was not able to do so. He kept on getting an error:

You cannot access the Global Net while in combat.

He tried to think about what he had read about demons. Their weaknesses. What were they? What were they? Then he remembered. Demons are creatures of darkness. They fear the light. Holy magic spells or light magic spells would hurt them. They did have very high resistances to all other damages till they are weakened by holy or light magic spells.

Marcus conveyed the information to Oril who conveyed the same to Orin. The adventurers suddenly started to retreat. Marcus frowned at that. Why was everyone retreating? Then he heard the shout of Retreat from somewhere to his right. It was Orik. It seemed that the remaining Ori brothers were in charge and had called for a retreat.

A lone figure stepped forwards when the others were retreating. It was a gnome. The gnome had a crossbow in his arms and was soon surrounded by adventurers with shields. Tanks, Marcus presumed.

The gnome muttered a spell and his crossbow started glowing with a bright golden light. He then shot bolt after bolt towards Mára. After five bolts and 300 points of damage to the demon lord, there was a shattering sound and Mára staggered.

“Charge”, shouted Orin. He had entered the battlefield. Marcus realized what had happened. They had broken through the demon lord’s defences.

The adventurers charged, at first a bit hesitant, but after seeing Orin leading them charging straight into Mára, they increased their speed. Mára tried to attack Orin but he dodged Mára’s attacks and smashed his flail into him for a damage of 50 points. This was good. The other adventurers attacked.

Tanks roared their challenges, trying to taunt Mára, hoping the demon lord would focus on them. However, it seemed to Marcus that the major aggro was on Orin who was now weaving his way through adventurers and Mára’s attacks to hit him fast and hard.

Kyrie had her bow up and was shooting arrow after arrow into Mára. Some of the adventurers still died, but it seemed that they were winning. Mára was losing health fast.

As soon as Mára’s health went below 2,500, he let out a roar knocking back the adventurers surrounding him. Marcus got a notification. He was stunned for 10 seconds. That was a lot. Mára made short work of the nearby adventurers. The Ori brothers all died. This was not good.

Panic was now setting in the midst of the adventurers. Marcus looked at Kyrie who simply shrugged. Another adventurer tried to direct the present adventurers but he was killed too.

Marcus swore and he charged in. He had not yet tried to attack Mára but he saw no option. They had to finish this fast. Otherwise Mára may cover ground that they did not want him to cover.

Marcus dodged through Mára’s attacks and slashed at the demon lord’s ankles and knees with his twinblades, four sharp and fast attacks. Mára roared and brought all his weapons down on Marcus. Marcus jumped back, using his twinblades for defence. He was still hit and crashed into rubble. His health was now down to 10 points.

Marcus quickly ran out of there as Mára engaged a new set of adventurers. He gulped down some health potions to get his health back to full.

As he glanced around thinking of what to do next, his eyes fell on the gnome who had shot the demon lord defeating his resistance with a spelled bolt. Marcus ran up to him, looking at his information.

Zissix Trance

Gnome

Level 10

Marcus was impressed. Here was someone half the level of demon lord and had removed the demon lord’s defences.

Marcus said as he approached Zissix, “Why are you not using the enchanted bolts?”

Zissix looked at Marcus sheepishly, “I can’t. My spell [Enchant Weapon] is unique. But it has a limitation. The more powerful or complex the custom enchantment, the higher the cooldown.”

“What?”

Zissix shared the description.

[Enchant Weapon]

Enchant your weapon with whatever enchantment as per requirement. Enchantment would last for five strikes. Cooldown would be decided based on the enchantment used.

“This is level 1 of the spell”, said Zissix, “It does get better as I level up.”

“So what is your current cooldown?”

“It was 30 minutes. 13 minutes remain now.”

Marcus’ eyebrows raised in surprise, “What enchantment did you use?”

“Sacred Wrath”, said Zissix, “It is a high level holy enchantment. I thought it would do more damage. However, I was wrong.”

Marcus looked at Zissix with a weird expression, “Dude you are level 10 while that hunk of demon is level 20. Be glad that you managed to stagger him.”

Zissix nodded and Marcus continued, “Does no one else have a holy or light spell in their arsenal?”

Zissix gave a short laugh, “It is too early. Most of the adventurers do not even have a spell slot acquired. Do you?”

Marcus shook his head proving Zissix’s point.

Marcus said, “So, we got no more holy attacks?”

Zissix shook his head. At that moment Marcs felt a shift in the air. Both Zissix and Marcus looked at Mára. He had his arms in the air and energy was cackling between it. Marcus looked at Mára’s health. It was currently 1,492 points. It seemed that Mára was preparing to unleash a large devastating spell. Adventurers attacked but no one was able to damage him. Weapons glance off Mára’s skin. Arrows and bolts fell down broken after hitting him.

“We gotta stop this”, said Marcus.

“How?” asked Kyrie, joining Marcus and Zissix.

Marcus looked around. The others did too. It was Zissix who made the discovery.

“Look”, said Zissix pointing at a store a few buildings away from where they were. Marcus looked at the name of the store. Enioro’s Enchantments. Could there be something there? They rushed into the shop.

Zissix said, “Look for any sort of holy or light enchantment.”

“I know”, said Marcus and Kyrie together.

“I found a scroll”, said Kyrie, “And it requires certain high level ingredients to cast the spell. What the gork!”

The others did not comment. It seemed that Kyrie babbled when she was nervous and Marcus was sure that currently she was in a full blown panic mode.

They searched for a couple of minutes and then they felt it. Mára had finished his spell. He brought all of his six hands in front of him with the condensed spell. He shot it straight and the spell travelled fast in a straight line obliterating everything in its path. Marcus looked at the path of destruction of the spell. The path it cleared was at least five metres wide and it went straight up to the end of the town. Everything was destroyed in its path. Marcus could see trees far away.

Mára turned towards them. He looked at Marcus looking at Mára through the window and put two of his hands up. Mára started chanting another spell. This one was different.

Marcus said, “Um, we need to hurry. I think this demon lord is going to cast an area of effect spell.”

“How can you be so sure?” asked Kyrie.

“Just a gut feeling. Come on. There has to be something here that can help.”

It was Marcus who found something in a few moments. He went to the back of the shop to find a locked glass case with grenades. They were labelled Holy Grenades. He called the others. There were five grenades. The case was locked. Marcus smashed the case and the alarm started to go off in the store. Marcus grabbed one while the other two grabbed two each. They rushed out of the store.

Mára was still chanting but Marcus could feel the energy he had condensed now. All the hairs on his body were standing up. The last surviving adventurers were still trying to hit Mára but still producing no effect.

Marcus threw his Holy Grenade at Mára. It hit the demon lord with a damage of 300 points and staggered him. Mára charged at Marcus.

Marcus dodged the attack and shouted to Kyrie and Zissix, “Hurry! Throw your grenades.”

Kyrie and Zissix threw them one after the other, dealing 598 points of damage to Mára. He was down to 594 points of his health. That was good. It was close. Last two grenade throws and it would be hopefully over.

Kyrie and Zissix threw the grenades again. Kyrie had a critical strike, shaving off 450 points of Mára’s health. Zissix missed. The grenade exploded some feet away from Mára, near some advancing adventurers. It caused only 10 points of damage to Mára. He was down to 134 points of health.

Mára raised his hands and shot magic bolts at oncoming adventurers. He was literally one shotting them with his spells. Marcus knew it in his gut. This was the end. The arrows and bolts from Kyrie and Zissix were still not impacting Mára. Mára was advancing slowly towards Marcus. He reached up to Marcus and put a hand straight on his forehead. Marcus closed his eyes, readying for death again.

The next moment Marcus heard a loud honk and he was thrown down on the ground. He lifted his head up to see a Mechanical Quadruped hit Mára with a force to knock him down. Four familiar figures dropped out of the Quadruped. Marcus grinned. It was the Ori brothers. It seemed that Oril had a knack for commandeering Mechanical Quadruped.

Orin had something in his arm. It was a grenade. Orin dropped it on Mára’s head and it exploded with a golden light. Mára died with a final scream. It was over. Marcus sat up and started to laugh. They had done it. Solaris was still standing. Well, a part of it had been destroyed but the demon lord was dead. Solaris was not completely destroyed.

***

Kyrie looked at the aftermath of the battle. The non-adventurers were streaming in, looking at the damage made by the demon lord. It was not pretty but Kyrie was sure that they could rebuild. She could see tear stricken and disheartened faces though. And that is what she did not like to see.

So she focused on her stats. She had gained 1,000 points of experience from completing the quest for saving Solaris and had been awarded with the next phase of the major quest.

Major Quest

Find out more about the Demonic Invasion

Solaris has been saved. The demons are not done yet. Find out more about the invasion and where the demons would strike next.

Hint: Join a major faction

Kyrie did not like that. It seemed that there was no choice but to join a major faction in order to continue the quest. She was more interested in Adventurer versus Adventurer. She wondered what faction would allow that. That she spends more time fighting adventurers rather than fighting demons. She sighed. It was a problem for later. Right now she wondered how to spend the 6 points she had received by leveling up thrice. She was now level 18. She put all of her unspent points in agility. She felt that after dexterity, it was her most important stat. She checked her status again.

Name: Kyrie Shiningstar

Race: Water Nymph

Designation: Adventurer - Rank 1

Age: 83

Current Location: Solaris

Adventurer Statistics:

Adventurer Level: 18

Experience: 140/360

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 20

Intelligence: 7

Vitality: 10

Agility: 15

Wisdom: 7

Luck: ???

Health: 120

Mana: 114

Active Effects:

None

Passive Effects:

Fast Draw - Level 3

Precision - Level 4

Longbow Proficiency - Level 10

Stealth - Level 10

Water Proficiency - Level 100

Description: The outcast traveller from Tarados, flowing into Una, taking baby steps with a potential to sweep everyone away is enjoying herself by bashing other adventurer’s heads. She is the water nymph to watch out for.

Spells known:

[Power Shot] [Fade]

Spells Equipped:

[Power Shot] [Fade]

Spell Slots: 2

Physical Attack: 20

Magical Attack: 17

Physical Resistance: 8

Magical Resistance: 6

Critical Attack Chance: 8% (max 18%)

Critical Attack Damage: 15.00% (max 35.00%)

Status:

None

Social: 900/1000 (Neutral)

NAIF: 1100/2000 (Positive)

Solaris: 2300/4000 (Very Positive)

It seemed that aiding in killing the demon lord and saving Solaris had helped build her reputation. The reputation jump for Solaris was very high. However, the reputation jump for NAIF was not much and for Social it was minimal. She wondered how she would get a good Social reputation jump.

From the statuses she could see that the increase in agility had affected her critical attack chance. However, she also knew that agility was more related to fluid movement and dodging ability which was not mentioned in the status of any adventurer. It seemed that the Game Masters had kept certain statuses hidden from the adventurers on purpose and they wanted the adventurers to figure them out on their own.

She closed her status screen and looked up to see Orin walking towards her. She waved at him, not having the energy to execute the traditional greeting.

Orin reached her and said, “Are you all right, Kyrie?”

“Fine”, replied Kyrie, “Just tired.” She was not lying.

Orin nodded his head and said, “Do you have some time to talk in private?”

“What’s this about?”

Orin looked thoughtful for a second. Then he said, “I have a proposition for you. Will you like to listen to it?”

It is already starting, thought Kyrie. The Dwarven Kingdom was a major faction after all. Orin would try and get as many adventurers on his side to fight the demons in The Dwarven Kingdom. She thought about it. Did she want to do it? Then she decided that it was worth listening to Orin just once. She could decline his offer after all.

Kyrie stood up. She said, “All right. Lead the way. I will hear what you have to say.”

And as they left, a figure watched them walking away. The figure turned with a smile on their face.

“The gears are in motion”, they muttered and disappeared.

***

Silas was looking at the report in front of him. He was supposed to be out of Solaris. He was supposed to be the part of a team which would keep tabs on Marcus Blank. Instead, about thirty percent of Solaris had been destroyed. Of the total population of fifty three thousand and twenty non adventurers, four hundred and two of them had died, permanently and there were so many wounded.

Silas could not abandon Solaris like this. He felt, in a way, this was NAIF’s fault. They had not managed to stop the Game Masters from having the demon scenario as a major quest and now they were paying the price of their failure.

Silas had had a short video call with Charles stating he wanted to help build Solaris. Charles had refused Silas’ request. The reason Charles had given Silas chilled his bones. Solaris was not meant to survive the demon lord. A miracle had happened. All of the present adventurers were hailing the Ori brothers as the heroes who saved Solaris. However, Charles felt that it was Marcus Blank’s influence that had altered the events somehow. Silas failed to see how it could be. He had not been allowed to put his case. Marcus Blank was now of utmost priority.

Silas would help till his replacement came. Then he would be portalling immediately to Melancholia. Silas sighed as he got up from his chair, laying the report he was reading on the desk. He looked out the window of the undamaged NAIF facility. A majority of the people of Solaris had been evacuated from the town when the demon lord had been summoned. Still, there were so many non adventurers without homes because of the attack.

It was at this moment Silas made a decision. If the higher ups think that Marcus was a person of interest and needed to keep tabs on, then he would help him. He needed to find a way to do it discreetly though. According to Charles, Marcus would be a key player in the demon war scenario. Then Silas would help him so as to ensure the survival of non adventurers on Una.

He suddenly smiled. He had a plan. Silas called his assistant. He had a new special quest to organize.