“Does everyone have everything they need?” I asked, shouldering my pack onto my back. This was truly the first real journey we would take together as a group.

“We’re good to go,” Alan replied. It was fortunate that there was an actual inventory for items like weapons and armor as well as other drops from the mobs. As long as an object was considered an item it could be stored there, and the stack size seemed indefinite as far as I could tell.

The inventory did have a counter showing you could only hold a hundred different types of item, but that seemed like a distant limit, one that I wouldn’t reach for a very long time, if at all.

Nothing was more pressing than what lay ahead. The special vendor was clearly a critical event for the fate of those people who had survived this far. The fact that we’d been collecting Survivor’s Medallions also underscored the significance of this opportunity. If we didn’t take it, these drops and all the fighting that went into getting them would be wasted. But were we strong enough? For myself and Jessica, I had few reservations. We had done as much as we could to maximize our strength. But perhaps this was a raid event that needed a hundred people of high level to overcome whatever guardians there were between us and the shop. In which case, we’d be unable to get there and even trying would mean death for us all.

The fate of our community depended on all five of us above level ten to come along and take up this challenge, but the rewards could be transformative. “Alright, let’s go,” I said. We hopped into the only SUV on farm and Lucas gladly drove.

After skirting around Sangeal, we would be heading east for about two hours, and then from there would have to play it by the map. Our goal just showed as a dot where the Special Shop was and the map also showed me as a dot. Neither the obstacles between us, nor exactly where the shop was were shown properly. The only other information on the map was our distance to the shop, which was 231 Miles. We routed around Sangeal and then kept on the road for around another 200 miles, passing the turnoff for Perchane, which was another fair-sized city, and small farm town.

Eventually, the map showed that the shop was just north of us, and as we turned off the highway I could see car tracks were already evident on this seemingly ancient pathway. This seemed to prove a point that others would be showing and it made me uneasy. Other groups could be allies to get in to the shop, but they could also consider us rivals for the rewards. The new road didn’t look natural at all, and as we drove for about thirty minutes, I realized it wasn’t. The land around me seemed to have become completely flat.

“Something changed! Wasn’t there a mountain on our right just now?” Alan asked.

“Yeah, there was. Coal mining used to happen there,” Thomas replied, but there was no mountain now. All the way to the horizon was just unbelievably flat land that made me think we were traveling through a desert. It stretched away for such a distance that it almost didn’t seem to follow the curvature of the Earth.

We could see our destination up ahead. A blue light beamed upwards into the sky faintly and would pulse just as faintly every couple of minutes. As we drove closer, I could see that thirty-foot walls surrounded a towering structure, but whatever was hidden behind the walls couldn’t be discerned. A minimarket? A town perhaps? They were big enough.

There were other people already there as we approached, maybe a hundred or so standing around their vehicles and looking up at the behemoth of a monument.

A single opening was visible in the walls, and beside it were two incredibly large statues looking like something straight out of Egypt. They were two sphinxes, standing on either side of an open arch. “Can you tell anything about the statues?” I asked Jessica. There was no glowing fire visible from them.

She shook her head, “I can’t scan them. They are inanimate objects.”

That didn’t make any sense to me. There was nothing beside them or behind them or anything but free real estate once you crossed the threshold of the entrance. Why was no one going in? I got out of the SUV and walked closer to get a better look.

People around started looking at me, and I could feel their piercing stares. One foot in front of the other, close and closer, and yet I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary about the sphinxes. Was there another entrance on the other side of the walls?

I put my foot down and suddenly my sixth sense went off like crazy. My eyes immediately bolted to the sphinx statue in front of me, and even though it was fully an inanimate statue, its eyes… The eyes of the statue followed me with such murderous intent that I could feel it.

This was dangerous, and it was only second to the Fiend. The fiend was on another level completely in terms of threat. My senses were telling me though, if I stepped a few more feet forward I would be attacked, and the battle wouldn’t be an easy one.

If it was only one statue, then my feeling was that we would be able to control the fight and dispatch it, but there was a second. Were there more mobs besides these statues waiting as well? I didn’t want to be the guinea pig of this group.

In the hope someone would give me some information, I looked around and most people gave me unfriendly stares. In their defense though, I didn’t look welcoming either. My skull mask and black garb paired with my bone shield gave me a demonic look. In their eyes I was probably a total bad guy.

I reported my findings to the others and the consensus was to wait and gather information about earlier attempts to go in. Unfortunately, no one gave me a single welcoming look. Fortunately, we had a beautiful woman with us whom was attracting as many stares as I was but of a very different sort.

It didn’t take long for Jessica to find a running mouth, “About a day ago someone walked too close and the sphinx statues attacked him. He was doing okay running away, but just when we thought he was going to get clear they simply shot a laser from their eyes. His body just turned to ash.” The man shrugged ruefully. “After that, no one has gone anywhere near the arch.”

Probably the crowd had hoped that I would trigger the sphinxes, so they could learn more about them. It wasn’t the most generous of thoughts but if so, I felt the same. It would be very useful to watch someone try to go in. Only when the sphinx was animate would there be a chance Jessica could scan them and at least find out their tier and level.

What also became readily clear was that many of the men here were too full of themselves, “Hey beautiful, why don’t you hang out with us?” This came from a young tank-type, probably younger than me, catcalling Jessica.

She looked him up and down then gave a condescending laugh, “Not interested.”

The youth’s eyes scanned us as a group with ill intent, “Are these people even able to protect you?” Confident words, but as far as I could tell there was nothing special at all about this person in front of me. I was sure he was even weaker than Ghost Hand, and that if she wanted to Jessica could dispatch him with a single arrow in one swift motion.

“I’m taken already. Get lost!” Jessica barked at him before walking over to me and grabbing my arm. I was suddenly stunned in place and didn’t know how to react. She was able to take care of herself no doubt, so why did she have to go and drag me into it?

The arrogant young man looked at me with uneasy eyes, “This ghoulish freak?” Somehow his comment didn’t make me annoyed at all. It was actually useful in deterring any others from getting involved. The more I came across as disturbing, the less someone would want to risk taking me on.

“How about this,” Jessica smiled sweetly, but without any warmth, “if you can take out a sphinx for me, then I’ll change my mind. I’ll be all yours.”

The guy looked at the sphinxes there for a moment and then turned back with a sour face. “No you won’t; I’m not stupid!” He turned away and strode off. When he was about halfway back to his own group he turned around and gave me a double middle-finger.

Now that actually made me annoyed. WTF did I do? Jessica could only laugh at the entire situation, “Are you gonna end up being trouble?” I asked.

“Hey, I almost had someone to go animate those sphinxes for us. I could then have got us some useful info.” And she wasn’t wrong. If a new group came along, maybe she could convince someone to walk through the gate. I caught myself right there. Had I become so used to this that I would knowingly allow someone to die for the sake of getting through to the shop?

After an hour of finding out very little else, a group of four ­– two men, two women ­– rolled up and all of them had serious sticks up their asses. They scornfully mocked everyone and referred to us as weaklings for sitting around and not walking directly into the special shop. This was exactly what we needed and my morals did not have to be tested.

Despite that attitude, someone was still kind enough to warn them to not get too close to the sphinxes, that they would be attacked with lasers from the eyes of the monsters. Yet in a serious case of overestimating their abilities, the four of them walked up and both the sphinxes attacked simultaneously.

The new group weren’t just bluster: they definitely did have some ability, as they survived for over a minute fighting. Just as I was wondering whether we should come in and help, despite a lack of information, their tank was smashed under a stone paw and turned to meat mush.

Realizing they had bit off more than they could chew the other three immediately tried to run. Just as the reports said, lasers shot from the sphinxes’ eyes and vaporized each and every one of them without fail.

Once you started the encounter, you could not leave. Watching that sight for the second time, many people immediately decided this battle was well past what they could hope to defeat and started to leave.

Jessica had managed to get valuable information though. Each Sphinx was a level 22 Elite enemy. “What level do you think those people were?” I asked everyone in the group.

I honestly couldn’t tell, as none of them fought like Jessica and I did. Lucas was the one to speak up, “I’d say they were right around our levels: sixteen to seventeen.”

“How hard do you think those sphinxes are hitting?” I asked Alan. He had upgraded his shield from a car door to a tower shield now. He was a tank, and could get a basic idea from just watching the other person struggle.

“Pretty hard. I have one thousand four hundred HP and I think they would be doing around twenty to twenty-five percent of my HP per hit.”

“You have Block?” I asked.

“I block thirty-five percent of attacks and take fifteen percent of damage from blocked attacks.” Over the course of several hits, Block would account for around a 30% reduction from damage over many hits, which made sense for a tank. He also took another 30% less damage while below half HP.

“So are you confident you can tank one on your own for an extended period of time? It won’t be attacking that fast and you’ll only have to deal with one.” I said. We would double Quagmire on pull and my minions would tank the first one.

“Do you have some sort of plan?” Maria asked. She had been silent for a while now. I thought perhaps that she felt out of place here as she was the newest to our group.

“I do, but it’s a basic plan,” I admitted. We hadn’t seen any special skills from the sphinxes as the other group hadn’t managed to deal enough damage to trigger one. They had merely survived, but their efforts had only lasted so long. “I focus a sphinx down as fast possible—the one my minions are attacking. Alan will tank one sphinx alone with Thomas healing him.” I looked at Thomas, “How long would you be able to keep him up?”

“If he is under fifty-percent HP and taking thirty-percent less damage, probably several minutes, but that comes with risks.”

“Right, we don’t know if they have any special abilities,” I said. “but in my experience, enemies don’t really use them until they’ve lost HP. We won’t be attacking the target Alan is on until we’re ready to kill it. There’s no way he can deal twenty-five percent or more of its HP alone.

“Once we are on his target, you’ll cap him off so he’s never too low on HP.”

“Okay, this all sounds good,” Lucas said, “But how can we be sure we’ll be able to defeat the first sphinx before Thomas runs out of MP? If we can’t, the second one will kill us all.” It was a good point to make.

“How long does it take you four to down an exceptional enemy?” I asked.

“Like the banshees or brutes back at Sangeal?” Alan asked

“Yeah, those, how long?” I would have preferred to measure their performance against the abominations or demi-humans, but at least this would allow me to explain where Jessica and I were at in terms of DPS.

“About thirty seconds, maybe a bit shorter, why?”

I couldn’t help but look at Jessica, who also looked back at me. “Those enemies take me alone about five seconds to kill,” I said without trying to brag.

“This is no time to exaggerate,” Lucas said with a frown.

“I’m not—alone it’s in seconds, almost feels instant.” I added, “Maria, you were with us when we killed one of these Exceptional Abominations, tell them.”

“Ah, I was. I think that fight took around eight or nine seconds only? It used its abilities pretty much back to back and then died.”

“…Seriously?” said Alan and he, Thomas, and Lucas all gave a look of ‘impossible’ on their face.

Jessica strung her bow. “It’s been a long time since you’ve seen us fight.”

Lucas turned to her, “So… you kill a level eighteen exceptional enemy in about ten seconds?”

“Around that, yes,” Jessica replied.

“Okay, so we have the damage, but how much stronger and more HP do you think these have then? Fifty-percent? One-hundred percent? More?” It was a good question. No one could be sure just how much a difficulty rise Exceptional to Elite was.

Despite the failure of the previous group, this wasn’t an impossible encounter. Whoever designed this encounter at least understood that it was in reach of the more experienced players. And if they guessed that human mistrust meant people weren’t going to just band together on a whim and fight the sphinxes, they were right. It would take someone with a lot of charisma, or with a track record of building a community to organize those standing around the high walls. This event had come too soon for our farming group to be known or to prove itself as a hope for survivors. We were unknown and probably looked off-putting.

No, people were going to attempt this encounter with the groups they had. Could we go away, level up some more, and come back? The difficulty of the encounter here was likely to rise, after all, we’d had a warning with the system-wide alert that monsters within 500 miles of the Special Shop will continue to grow stronger until the Special Vendor is accessed. The blue pulses of energy coming from the light every few minutes felt to me like a timer of some sort. A countdown? Or a pulse strengthening all the nearby mobs?

It was possible that this whole set up was designed to force large groups of players to come together. That the designers of the system hadn’t anticipated one group could rise to the challenge. The formation of a large raiding party seemed like an obvious development. Was that the intended situation? What they wanted to happen? Well maybe another time Jessica could try to rally people. For now, I believed we had the measure of this.