Fantasy World Online I: New Roads

New Roads! Chapter 15

Through the party's bored chatter I learned that they had seen Sendrix enter the cavern with ten of his private guards and around thirty more of his private soldiers. Dokil, the thief based gamer of the party, had entered the cavern several times to prepare a strategy. Apparently the place was made of a long corridor with small individual rooms on its sides and a spiral stair at the end. The stairs lead to a large underground room supported by pillars and a stone table and monolith.

It's very similar to the old conclave...

The corridor, the rooms, and the hall were heavily guarded by the soldiers but the elf had been unable to find were Sendrix and his guards had gone.

If it is like at the ruins then there is a secret passageway under the monolith. That's were they went.

The players had been hesitating to attack since they did not know were their target was and had died nearly instantly on their first attempt to enter the cave. That explained why they took so long to report to Vendro. They were now readying themselves for a second attempt, planing to stealthily attack the soldiers one by one.

As I listened to them I knew that their tactics would work, I decided to use it for myself.

My plan was to use them as a distraction, silently bypass the soldiers with my cushioned paw skill, battle those downstairs in my human form and reach Sendrix before the others did. If all went well i would never have to reveal my presence to them.

At the darkest of the night, the players had hid themselves on each side of the dolmen entrance and with one signal from their leader moved onto the soldiers. Just like during the raid on the Bandit camps they slit the men throat with knives, threw knitted threads of burning herbs into the cavern, the white smoke blinding the soldiers before rendering them unconscious. They went in, taking care of the fallen men as they advanced, throwing a couple more of herbs further into the corridor. As they battled those in the corridors, the soldiers in the nearby rooms understood that their comrades were under attack and joined those in the corridors to help them. Still in my wolf form and hidden to everyone I searched every adjoining room for treasures.

As a wolf, I could not transport anything but I hid the most precious items under the beds, below clothes or behind the furniture. If I could I would come back later on to get them.

When the elves had defeated two-thirds of the soldiers I had visited more than twenty of the rooms. The party decided to take a break to replenish their health and mana. As they were eating drinking potions I took the opportunity to go forward, passing them, the soldiers and the rest of the rooms to reach the end of the corridor.

There I reached the first complication: the stone spiral stairs were guarded by Sendrix's Elite Soldiers.

If I waited for the elves to kill them I would never be able to reach Sendrix first, if I tried to pass them stealthily I had no guarantee it would work and if I took care of them myself the elfique players would know i was here.

No choice. By the time they get here, I will have to be in the secret passageway.

Hiding in a dark corner I disabled Spirit of the Wolf and pulled my bow out. As fast as I could I shot the first man in its armor's joints, its most fragile places. Seven arrows later he was dead and I was being rushed by his two companions.

I threw my hatchets in the torso of the closest one, he fell down on his knees as I started attacking the last one with my black sword. His health was halfway gone when the second man stood back up after using a healing potion and pulling the two weapons out of him. I was now trapped between them and had to take a defensive stance.

This level of difficulty is to be expected from level 70 enemies.

I had to wait until one of them lost patience and attacked thoughtlessly to get the advantage back. As the soldier whose torso I had butchered leaped on me, I crouched on the floor stone floor, rolled behind the third man and stood up with my sword arm extended.