Level 1 Fallen

To my surprise, it at first looked like Grog's party wasn't going to come back for revenge against the stunt I pulled. I even thought that they might have learned to behave themselves. Or, perhaps they managed to sneak away from the Desert Emperor successfully, and were still on their way back to the city.

My answer came Thursday afternoon, when I was walking through town under my new Ghost Zone skill, just to get a little training with it while I waited for Diane to log on. Since our dungeon raid was happening in the middle of the night, she wasn't going to log in until late in the evening.

Regardless, as I was walking, I caught sight of a familiar group standing outside of a weapons shop. Sure enough, it was the same group that I had driven off previously. However, there was something distinctly different about them. Every member of the group had switched out exactly one piece of their equipment. For instance, Grog's axe was noticeably different from the one I had originally seen him with, and the elf's short swords were no longer a matching pair.

I stared in shock, wondering how their luck could have been so bad that all of them lost a piece of their equipped items. Then, it hit me. They were wanting to enter a dungeon where falling off the ledge could lead to a permanent item loss. There were traditionally two schools of thought with how to deal with this.

The first answer was to clutter your inventory with as much random, worthless trash as you could find, reducing the chance that you dropped anything of value. The second was to store absolutely everything other than your active equipment in the bank. While this meant that you would be guaranteed to drop a piece of equipment if you fell, it also opened your inventory up to collect loot from the dungeon.

There were many cases when dungeons weren't calm enough for you to casually sort through your inventory to make room for loot, so both sides did have their own merits. From the looks of things, this party went with the second option, and were now scrambling to replace their lost equipment.

Admittedly, I felt good knowing that I had caused them to suffer a tangible loss. If all I cost them was a few hours of experience grinding, that would have been far less satisfying. Still, there was undisguised fury on their faces, so I knew that they'd try to make more trouble for us later somehow, I just didn't know what form it would take.

A few hours later, as the sun was starting to set, Diane sent me a notification that she was online. Since we still had plenty of time until the dungeon, I asked her to meet up where she caught me training originally.

I'm already there. She responded afterwards, catching me by surprise. I looked around, not seeing her. A moment later, she dropped out of stealth, a small grin on her face. "Looks like I finally overcame your perception." She pointed out.

"Did you evolve?" I asked hesitantly. Even if she managed to balance out her negative trait with Hidden Shadow, there was too much of a difference for her to be able to turn completely invisible on me. At least with her former stealth, I could somewhat track her if I paid attention, but this time she just faded into view out of nowhere.

Diane nodded her head proudly. "I got Ghost-X last night. Now, you aren't the only one that can do it." For Diane, her ability to remain hidden had always been a point of pride, especially given her ninja roleplay.

I smile happily, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder. "Congratulations. I knew you would train your stealth skill insanely fast."

She beamed at the praise, before clearing her throat and returning to her stoic appearance. "So, what about the group of idiots from before? My Chosen hasn't sent me any messages, so they haven't messed with her yet."

"Same here." I nodded in confirmation. "Either they're going to do something on our way into the dungeon, or they'll try to extort us when we come out of it. I saw them earlier buying new gear after they 'unfortunately' dropped some of theirs in the desert."

Diane gave a knowing smirk, before glancing off in the direction of the dungeon. "I looked into them over the last couple of days, but they're just normal players. Full of themselves, sure, and I even saw a post from one of them claiming that 'an NPC harassed them unfairly in an active attempt to ruin their game experience'."

I arched a brow when I realized I had been referred to as an NPC. Admittedly, I took some offense to that. A player I was not, but a Fallen still had an important role in the world. Still, from what I had seen, this group didn't care who they offended.

"Well, we should be able to handle whatever comes up." I shook my head, looking back at Diane. "Any last minute preparations you need to do? Any potions or scroll, or things of that nature?"

Diane hesitated, soon shaking her head. "My crafting skills aren't at a high enough level where the things that I make will have any effect on our fights. Maybe if I play around with some dragon materials, I'll be able to make improvements…?" She added innocently, looking up at me.

I couldn't help but laugh, nodding my head. "Yeah, yeah, I'll save a wyvern and a dragon for you." I promised, and Diane did a small, subtle fist pump.

After talking for a little while longer, the two of us made our way towards the dungeon. This dungeon entrance took the form of a suspended rope bridge, which led off into a white fog. Clearly, there was nothing on the other side of the fog cloud normally, but the bridge remained supported nonetheless.

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"Diane and Drake?" The foxfolk guard asked, looking at a list in his hands. "The last group left over an hour ago, so the monsters inside should have already refreshed."

Diane and I nodded our heads, making our way across the bridge. Both of us entered stealth mode, just in case a wandering monster was close to the entrance. Once we crossed into the fog, the environment shifted around us.

Unfortunately, one of those shifts was the disappearance of the bridge beneath our feet. Diane and I both gasped in surprise as gravity began to take hold, sending us plummeting towards the abyss below.

Without a moment to think, I reached out, grabbing at where I believed Diane was falling next to me, and pulled her in close with one hand. With my other hand aiming downwards, I created a path below me with Martial Intent-X. Thankfully, I felt the softness of Diane's cloak in my hand, and knew that I had properly grabbed onto her.

"How did they--" Diane began, before I made a soft shushing sound to silence her.

This isn't all. I said through private chat, looking upwards. I could hear furious roars above, as well as the sounds of fire spewing through the air. I pulled my bike out of my inventory, sitting on it and making sure I felt Diane's weight behind me before driving up towards the platform above.

It was chaos, with wyverns clashing against one another, and even a Lesser Red Dragon, tearing into them. From the corpses on the ground, this fight had been going on for more than a few minutes.

How did they get all the monsters from all three regions to fight outside the entrance? Diance asked, and I had a feeling that she was as amazed as I was. If that group used as much brainpower trying to get Mana Breathing through other means instead of plotting their revenge, they would have been out of Manamill ages ago.

I activated Detective Analysis, and spotted a small, unassuming stone on the platform. It looked on the surface like any casual rock, but my skill registered it as a player item. One that had been enchanted with a powerful Provoke skill. Looking around, I saw multiple of these rocks strewn about, including some leading towards the next platform.

They enchanted a bunch of rocks to provoke monsters, and stir them into a frenzy. Most likely, they wanted us to either die from the fall, or the chaos on the platform. Either way, if the monsters kill each other, we won't be able to get the experience.

I could feel Diane nodding behind me. Though, we didn't come here for the experience. It's fine as long as we get the loot, right?

I simply chuckled at that, nodding my head and activating Ghost Zone. "You can turn off your Ghost-X. I've deployed an area stealth. I'm sure Ghost-X must burn your mana."

Diane sighed, nodding her head and becoming visible behind me. "Yeah. I can only keep it active for a couple minutes at a time right now. Anyways, what are we going to do about them? Would you be able to kill them all if you wanted?"

I hesitated, thinking about it seriously. When I took out the wyverns before, they were unable to fly away, and I caught them by surprise. Right now, however, they were in the midst of intense conflict, and would surely be able to flee if I used the same methods.

However, the biggest problem was that we couldn't even leave them to their own devices. Although their battle was intense, neither side was able to do serious harm to the other. The dragon was at a clear advantage, even against so many wyverns, but other wyverns kept spawning in from the second region and reinforcing the fight.

"I'll think of something." I said with a small nod. I had known since we got here that most of the fighting in the second half of the dungeon would be up to me. Partly due to Diane's level, but mostly because I was the only one able to reliably fight in the conditions presented by this dungeon.

Looking at the chaotic brawl, I sank into thought. The wyverns aren't that much of a problem. With Martial Intent-X, I should be able to kill as many as I need to. However, I'm worried about the dragon's defensive abilities.

I looked through my abilities, thinking about how I could handle the dragon among so many enemies. The best solution, clearly, was to take them all out at once. But, did I have a combination of skills that could do that?

Looking through the list… I actually might have. But first, I would need to prepare. "Let's head to the second region. I need to make a new enchantment, and this may take a few tries."

Diane blinked, looking at me in concern, but nodded her head as I drove us towards the bridge to the next platform. Thankfully, this bridge hadn't been cut down. From there, I looked around, and found a secluded spot to park behind a collapsed pillar, dismounting from my bike and putting it in my inventory.

Diane looked at me worriedly as I rolled up my sleeve, clenching and unclenching my fist. "Is there anything I can do to increase the success rate?" She asked, and I thought about it.

"I need runes for Shadow, Detection, Weapon, Vitality, and Projectile, if you've got all of those." When I listed the runes I needed, Diane's eyes widened in surprise. Still, she looked through her list, nodding her head.

"That's almost half of the runes I know, but I have them." She confirmed, and I smiled in relief.

"In that case, draw them all on my arm, preferably with the same ink you use to make scrolls." She hesitated at this request, but soon nodded her head and pulled out a small pen, stepping closer to me and drawing a circle of runes on my arm. "Next, I need as much Vitality essence as you can spare."

This time, there was no hesitation, she reached into her inventory, and withdrew twenty small, red orbs, placing them in my open hand. I took a deep breath, closing my hand around the essences and focusing. All of the skills I wanted to use were Martial skills this time. Technically speaking, I could have cast this directly, but it would have had the same chance of failure. At least, if I do it this way, I'd be able to cast it more than once.

I gripped my fist hard enough to crush the essences, lifting my arm to let the liquid flow down it. The entire time, I visualized the scene I wanted in my head from start to finish. This was the first time that I would be combining five skills into one enchantment, so I needed my mental image to be as detailed as possible.

As the essence dripped down my arm and fell to the ground below, a window appeared, notifying me of the successful enchantment. It felt… so weird to do an enchantment that didn't try to make my arm explode, for once.