Accidental Reaver

The time ticked down, leaving five minutes until Crystal Demon Point accepted a new crop of challengers. A certain corvid had taken her time, only now lazily circling around Luke's head with Whispering Tome. The two were playing a slow form of tag.

Four white circles appeared next to Luke, starling Whispering Tome, the artifact floating behind the Reaver. A party of humans and toras came out, crystals, scars, and torn armor all over. They dragged themselves out of the clearing, refusing to answer any questions from the other hunters. A white echo pulsed from their wounds frequently. One of their number coughed up black blood, their veins throbbing, appearing to be poisoned.

Luke figured the answer evident. That party clashed with another inside, or the inhabitants within—lost—and escaped with a return scroll or agreed to withdraw. They left to lick their wounds, lucky to keep their lives. The Reaver read up on what he could about Crystal Demon Point, a gauntlet type dungeon with only one mid-point where you could safely withdraw. Outside of that, without a Return Scroll, you had to kill the boss to leave.

Except to face the thing, you needed all four crystal keys to open the crystal bastion gate it resided behind. When entering the dungeon, each party earned one said crystal key. If a party died out without giving up ownership of a key, the key appeared to fill one of the four indents on the crystal bastion, as for what happened if three or less hunter groups entered the dungeon—hell if he knew.

Tongue in cheek, one party could conquer Crystal Demon Point every half a day. The hunters within—that weren't party members—were deadly competition, with little room for compromise.

Answers why the other three parties act like I don't exist. Easier to face me if we're strangers.

More portals opened up, this time around two other outcroppings. Out spilled two hunter groups, each short on members. Out of what Luke assumed should be eight, only five remained. An elf lost an arm, and a human woman sobbed about losing two of her teammates. Black crystals emerged from one of the hunter's back, shredding his armor. They, too, dragged themselves out the clearing, cutting their losses.

Once the timer finished, another portal opened up, out strode four hunters, each in top quality gear, their auras bursting at the seams. Their healer must've done a fantastic job, as Luke saw little else but fatigue on their bodies. The group leader nodded at the hunter representative as his group left Crystal Demon Point.

The Reaver overheard Vathen hiss, "Midril's party? From the looks of it, those four finally achieved a feat. Sylen's got a new batch of tier 2's as of today. He had the Tide in mind also; can't see why else he'd let the other teams out alive."

A woman elf with green hair said, "Couldn't they have made it out with a return scroll, Vathen?"

"One or two parties, sure. All three? Absolutely not. Midril allowed them to live. Their timing both great and terrible at the same time."

A pitch overtook the white crystal as the air around the four outcroppings distorted. The representative stood up on the tree branch he previously napped from.

"Enter at your nearest crystal connection pillar. No fighting until after you are inside the dungeon. Remember my earlier warning, hunter's wind at your backs." The hunter's branch representative pushed off from the tree branch melding into the forest, gone.

Xera—pumped up—said, "Nobody will stop us, I get to be the best party member of them all. Sword wands are better than normal people anyway, blah. Counting me out of the party still stings."

A crystal bordered circular portal simmered into existence above the four crystal outcroppings. Luke tentatively reached out with his left hand. A disastrously strong suction force picked up the Reaver from the ground and swallowed him whole. Sooty dived right in after him.

Unseen by the Reaver, three hunters made a mad dash for his portal, breaking out from the tree line. The representative flashed in front of the dungeon entry point in a black wind. He pushed out his right arm, three rotating stars supporting it.

"Never fails. Every time a hunter group or individual goes in with less than three or four, some of you idiots get a wild idea up your ass. Stay out, Defier Luke got his ticket. You must wait until the Tide is over for a chance at yours."

One hunter, a Rogue in appearance, tried to stealth, moving toward the portal again. One star around the representative's arm crashed into the Rogue, shoving her with such force she rocketed back into a tree, splitting it apart.

Suddenly, the other two hunters weren't so eager anymore. They scurried back in the direction of their Rogue friend. Settling the conflict, the portal closed up after another minute passed.

Glancing back at the empty space where the portal once floated, the representative said, "How people don't see the abyss within the Ninth, I'll never know. Ingrates should thank me for saving their lives."

Shifting crystals digged throughout rocky, shard filled terrain. A hum arose from purple glass-like walls.

The ground slanted and shook apart when too much weight pressured it. Luke tried to find footing, planting himself where the shifting grounds stabilized. Horned grip took care of most of the issue. Getting the hang of it, another surprise decided to introduce itself.

Crystalline shards burst apart from the nearby purplish walls and underneath the ground, ripping from the instability. Coating Xera in ice, Luke slashed the blade out at the shards coming from the air while Triple Stepping backward to avoid the terrain hazard from below. Sooty Essence Screeched away any remnants as an Iron Feather protectively orbited her.

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The smell of gravel, dirt, and burnt wood—or close to it—distracted Luke's sense of smell. Shrubs dotted the landscape, growing tiny crystals instead of any fruit. Wary monstrous wildlife skittered around the Reaver. A floating cluster of shards came right for him.

Xera celebrated, "Finally, something tough to cut into, slash me away, and ice me up, master."

Reflexively cleaving Xera in an upward arc, the cluster shattered, cut through like tofu—instantly applied frost further cracked it apart in a secondary burst of damage. It dimmed, settling down on the withered shard heavy soil. A white orb entered Luke's Inventory. Not in the mood to count his eggs before they hatched, he directed the loot to Sooty's Spatial Feather. Luke inspected the dead creature, able to, in this case, since he was the one who killed it.

[Crystal Demon Shardling] (Dead)

Tier: 1

Level: 50

HP: 0/3113

Denizens of the shifting points starting area. Rarely comes alone and unreasonably hostile. If within its sight, it will attack you. Excessively fragile but hard to hit without a wide range ability.

Hard to hit? Didn't seem so. Luke thought.

The dimmed Shardling sunk further into the crystal blighted soil, out of sight within seconds.

Springing up from unstable terrain, a damn near horde of Shardlings dotted the area. At a glance, Luke counted over twenty. Sooty sprang up in front of Luke, flapping her wings to stay in place. Already aware of her Intent, Luke covered Sooty and Xera in Infusion, amping up their damage by a considerable margin. For good measure, Luke coated Sooty in a Frost Etched Essence Bond after putting ability on Xera first. Thankfully, the frost didn't seem to negatively affect Sooty.

An Essence Screech empowered by shadow and covered in hints of brown from Vorpal Touch ripped from her throat. Bits of frost rushed after the sound waves. Luke sensed the potency, with Sooty's intellect and ability level bounds higher than the last time he saw her use the ability against normal monsters.

The Reaver used Siphon on a central Shardling while jutting out his left hand to summon an Essence Fissure. The frosted pressure bunched up the Shardlings further into Sooty's fast approaching area of effect attack. As the sound wave ran through the Shardlings, chunks of crystal fell from their floating bodies. Brown, blue, and black debilitated them, and Siphon's mark duplicated onto each one.

Luke stowed away Xera as Sooty soared off to pick apart the healthiest looking Shardlings. Xera said, "The fights not over. What are you doing? Slice me around! Crystal is great for your blade skin."

"The fights definitely over, Xera. Sooty should let loose. It's been a while since fighting alongside her. You'll get more involved once I see what she's capable of now."

Like a plague, the multitude of effects deepened around the Shardlings. Vorpal Touch rotted them rapidly, shadow sucked away at their vitality and stamina, frost slowed them, pressure kept them in place, and Siphon ripped away stamina and resources from the helpless crystal based hostiles. Sooty blitzed through them, creating showers of shards multiple times a second. She melded into shadows, reappearing without a traceable pattern, the speed boost from both Infusion and Essence Bond attribute gain gave her speed over double her baseline. Bits of shadow trailed from her beak, talons, and wingspan, smothered in her shadow Elementalization technique.

Closely examining the slaughter, Luke analyzed. It's like giving Sooty a frost element Essence Bond lets her borrow my Ice abilities to a lesser degree. She's able to spread Vorpal Touch through her Essence Screech as well, and she's gotten far better with her shadow technique lately—the training paid off handsomely.

By the time Essence Fissure closed up, the scant remaining Shardlings were stuck in place from caked-on frost, among other negative effects. Sooty picked them off individually, showing off her Talon Strikes and other attacks. Crystalline lightning struck nearby, breaking apart the terrain further. It set off a series of shard blasts around Luke and Sooty, the corvid—already done with the Shardling horde—swept any loot into her Spatial Feather and jumped to Luke's Shadow. Shadow Wing materialized, protecting Luke's back.

To the front, Luke blasted out frost from one hand while crossing Xera over his centerline. The terrain hazards mainly froze in mid-air. The lucky few to get through bounced off his skin, more of a nuisance than harmful, only one well-placed shard sliced into the back of his hand. The slight bleeding caused Blood Haze to activate and Vampiric Regeneration to take over, and the wound closed up just as it appeared.

All immediate problems solved, Luke got himself on task. A quest issued itself to him through the Interface, and a crystal key entered the Inventory.

[Clear the Crystal Demon Point]

Overcome all other parties, monsters, and environmental obstacles in your way. Defeat Nemenoth within the allotted twelve hour span while preventing crystal corruption or death from forever keeping you within Crystal Demon Point.

Reward: 10 Skill Points to all applicable party members

Coming alongside the quest appeared a counter in Luke's upper left vision. It labeled itself 'Crystal Corruption'. It stood at zero percent.

The ground underneath Luke began to shift, slanting heavily. His boots began to suck away Essence, keeping him even with the ground. Sooty—currently flying—thankfully stayed quite unaffected. The passive draw from Arjanx's Core effect exceeded what the Reaver spent keeping his posture and stance stable.

Moving at a tilted angle, he became more aware of the terrain. Simply put, it was a mess. It cracked apart, shifted, set off crystal cluster bombs, raised hostile Shardlings everywhere, its sky sundered by crystal bound lightning, and started to smell like sulfur. Pits formed where Luke couldn't see the bottom, certain sections appeared stable in the shifting madness, and the Reaver tried to connect his path to those while moving forward.

It also happened that these more stable pockets of ground hosted resident Shardling hordes, ranging from ten to thirty in number. They tended to pure purple crystal flowers or the shard shrubs. Wildlife with crystal growths pranced around, usually trying to drink from flowing geode rivers or eating from the shrubs. The lucky ones managed not to fall horribly to their deaths in the pits dotting the landscape.

Swapping Xera to wand form, Luke practiced blasting out frosted essence at the mobile targets. Oftentimes, he landed a hit, slowing the target to a crawl or, if a critical strike, obliterating them entirely. Sooty supported him, picking off any that rushed in too close. If anything survived the two-pronged battle plan, a rotating Essence Lance took care of the rest, or a rush of frost came from Luke's other hand. Sooty gathered any drops, crystal herbs, or other valuables they came across.

Spreading out mist, Luke sensed no other party here. A habit borne of experience, but his research on Crystal Demon Point did say the four parties wouldn't run into each other in the first section—no matter what.

An anomaly stood in the distance, a narrow, twisting corridor made of silver reflective crystal. The terrain immediately connected to it stood iron solid, not a shiver of instability to be found. A wildlife colony of the crystal growth beasts huddled there, with Shardlings trying to run them off. Strength in numbers made the action ineffective, the two forces tearing into each other, fighting over safe shelter.

"What a place. The monsters are less of a problem than the crystal apocalypse all around." Luke said.

"Isn't it wonderful? Those crystal clusters know how to blast. Can I taste one of the crystal animals over there?"

"If they attack first, otherwise, leave them alone. We have enough to deal with."

"You're handling everything just fine, though. I haven't seen you break a sweat."

"I'd be worried if the first area pushed someone like me too far. Let's not get complacent."

Wayfinder opened his clasp, "Lad, if me needle can see it, your eyes definitely can. This area is ruining itself. The faster you pep those steps, the better. Unless you learned to fly when I closed me magnetic senses, this place is set to become a pit sooner than a crushed flower."

"I wish." Luke said as he gazed at the war zone ahead, near the twisting corridors, "That place is the only one left free of the deterioration."

In about a hundred foot span—give or take a reasonable variance—the ground near the crystal corridor up ahead seemed composed of a bedrock of solid crystal underneath the thin top soil layer. Deciding it would be better to interrupt the wildlife and Shardling conflict than to end up falling into a pit when he made a critical mistake, the Reaver silently approached the stable zone.