New quest: Shadow of the returned King.
The great king, whose rule once spanned over many lands, is now sleeping in the dark below. There was time, when his power was absolute and now his tomb is filled with gold, silver and rare magical items. But even then, there wasn’t anyone brave enough, who would dare to approach it.
If you find the horn flute in his tomb and bring it to Count Kress, you will get a generous reward.
Difficulty: A.
Reward: Treasures from the King’s tomb.
Restrictions: No magic may be used inside the ruins.
Usually players were acquiring quests by finding something unusual during hunt or by talking to certain NPC. Most of them were requests to find some ingridients, protect something or clear a monster-infested area.
However, thanks to luck and long investigation, Crimson Wings guild managed to find a hidden ‘A’ rank difficulty quest.
“Yes! This is the Royal Tomb ruins!”
They found the location of the ruins and even the map of its interior. The guild was celebrating their triumph, not forgetting to carefully guard their secret.
“So what if Hermes guild has BadRay? If we complete this quest we will be able to change everything!”
Teros, leader of the Crimson Wing guild, was making a speech for his guildmates.
At the start of the game guilds were appearing everywhere like mushrooms after a rain. But by now the situation has stabilized and the main competition was going on among the few dozen biggest and strongest guilds.
But soon all this was going to change. Guilds became big enough to claim control over entire kingdoms, which meant that times of quiet rivalry were coming to an end.
That was why it was important to gain as much power as possible before the new confrontation begins. The power was based on rare items, high levels and influential allies, and all of this was provided by difficult quests.
The Crimson Wings guild gathered all of their high-level players, 200 players of levels over 330, and hired 50 players of levels over 350 from the Dark Gamers Union.
The result was an extremely powerful squad of 250 people. And if they were to fail, Crimson Wings will lose 60% of its strength for full 4 days of Royal Road time. In this case other guilds might use their weakness to try to capture their castles.
That was why members of Crimson Wings were taking all possible measures to prevent any information from leaking. They did hire players from outside the guild, but none of them knew where and, more importantly, when they were going.
At the appointed day they gathered at the abandoned ruins, hidden in the center of bersa Continent.
“We’ll dig up the entrance to the ruins. As you all know, this quest is ‘A’ rank difficulty. Be careful not to die, every death will be a huge loss for our guild. Gale.”
“Yes, guildmaster.”
“You will lead the search party.”
“Yes! Leave it to me.”
Gale was very proud to be assigned to such an important task as scouting.
The search party consisted of a few dozens thieves, whose task was to detect traps and monsters along the path of the main forces, led by the guild master himself.
They started to slowly explore the area. Step by step, players were combing one part of the ruins after another. Thieves were going in front, followed by warriors, with priests in the back row.
Even though the latter couldn’t use healing spells because of the quest’s restrictions, they could still provide a helping hand in critical situation or drag the wounded soldiers out of danger.
“Be careful!”
“Don’t miss anything!”
The ruins were inhabited by dangerous monsters with sharp claws and filled with numerous cleverly hidden traps. Those traps were placed just a few meters from each other and were connected in such a way, that even player of level 300, who accidentally activated one of them would be lying dead a few moments later.
If such traps were installed in ordinary dungeons there would be very few players, willing to go into them. Besides, monsters in the ruins had a pretty high level and weren’t easy to deal with.
A great part of hired Dark Gamers, who had to go in the front line and scout the way, died on traps. By now the guild had only lost 30 people.
“We can’t give up! Our losses are indeed great, but if we retreat now, everything we did today will be lost and our companions’ deaths will be in vain.”
Teros was encouraging the remaining players and they were continuing to steadily advance into the ruins despite the losses. Some of the Dark gamers would prefer to leave this place, but they were bound by contract. Besides they were promised increased payment in case of death.
When the players reached the internal part of the ruins, they couldn’t hold their surprise. The entrance to the Royal Ruins was blocked by seemingly new, and therefore obviously enchanted doors with an image of red scorpion and some inscriptions in an unknown language on them.
In front of the doors was a small stone altar.
“Can anyone read the inscription on the doors?”
To answer the Teros’s question mages and priests approached the doors. Former knew various ancient languages, latter – holy symbols. But the symbols on the door didn’t seem to belong to any of those.
Fortunately, one of the best mages of Crimson Wings, Shavron recognized them.
“Those are letters of Varon.”
“And how are they different from the mages’ languages?”
“They come from the runic alphabet. But they were used by shamans rather than mages.”
“That’s right. So to provide some encryption some characters were a bit deformed. I learned it just in case and didn’t think it’ll ever be useful.”
“Come on, read them.”
Shavron started carefully interpreting the symbols on the doors.
“The entrance to the Royal Tomb will open for the one who will show true respect. His entire life King loved and revered scorpions, and only the one who will bring 7 scorpion figurines will be able to open the doors and enter the tomb.”
That must be why altar in front of the tomb had 7 small pedestals with 7 red gems.
“Figurines?”
All the members of the squad were confused.
Like everyone else, Teros got stunned for a while, but he quickly recovered and sent a guild-wide message, meant not only for those participating in the mission, but for the rest of the guild members, spread across the continent and kingdoms, too.
“Sculptor. Find a sculptor, who can create scorpion figurines!”
***
On a warm and sunny morning a group of players left Seraburg through eastern gates.
“Wow! Cool!”
“Look, they have Pluto and even Haisyns…”
“And their leader is Oberon!”
“Great! They must be going to the Plains of Despair again.”
Players, hunting around Seraburg couldn’t hold their admiration. Participating in such a dangerous adventure was the limit of their dreams at the moment.
“I’m jealous! When will we be able to go on a journey like that?”
“Not anytime soon. Let’s go, we have a lot of hunting to do if we want to raise our levels and be able to join them. They only accept players from level 250.”
“Eh, really?! Maybe there’re a lot of people like that in central kingdoms, but in our they’re less than one in a hundred.”
“That’s why they’re elite.”
The party, that caused such an excitement, headed along the road. They marched in unison, nodding proudly to encountered players, who were looking at them with admiration and reverence.
Soon the party reached the eastern border of the kingdom and their leader gave an order to stop.
“You already did so in the city, but I’ll ask you again to check your weapons and equipment.”
Following his own order, Oberon sat on the ground and started to check his equipment.
Usually the party leader position was occupied by a warrior with high leadership attribute. Fighting under the command of such a player, everyone was receiving a bit more experience and a slight stat increase.
As the hunt in Plains of Despair was very difficult, the most experienced and renowned warrior was selected to lead it, Oberon.
“All good.”
“I finished preparations.”
After waiting for every member of the party to report, Oberon nodded approvingly and commanded to move out.
On the eastern border of Rosenheim Kingdom a high wall was built, that was blocking the way of monsters, living on the other side. And to pass into Plains of Despair one had to climb up the stairs to the top of the wall and carefully descend the small hidden ladder on the other side.
“Wow! There’s a place like this…”
“Yeah, spectacular view.”
The players, who joined this hunting party for the first time, glowed with delight.
However Oberon, Pluto and Haisyns only smiled slightly.
“Let’s go. Wait a bit and you’ll see something even more breathtaking…”
These three were the most experienced in the party, they has left the Kingdom before for over five times and already knew what was waiting ahead.
The party just descended and moved a bit away from the wall, when they were attacked by a pack of wolves. Soulless Wolves with levels just below 200, and number just over a hundred were quickly approaching the players.
Calmly looking at the wolves, Oberon was giving orders.
“What’re you standing for?! This is just the beginning! Mages, attack!”
“Fireball!”
“Wind blades!”
“Blessing!”
Some of the 30 members of the party immediately started to cast one spell after another. Multiple elemental spells were directed at the wolves, burning, cutting and exploding many monsters at a time.
“Guaaaaaaah!”
The commander yelled at the top of his lungs. This shout was similar to Lion’s Roar, but instead of Fighting Spirit it was raising Vitality and Stamina of nearby players.
“Mages, aim at the ones on the sides and in the distance!, Warriors, attack!”
All the warriors and paladins gripped their swords and maces and rushed into fight, with Oberon in the lead.
“They’re poisonous. Be careful, don’t let them bite you! Each of you should watch your Health and Mana and