Civil War: Rogue Dungeon Book 2 (Chapters 1 and 2)

Chapter 1

Trolled Again

The mist-veiled graveyard was silent when Scott Bayani, in the form of his main, PwnrBwner_OG, crept through the rows of rundown tombs toward the outer wall of the Cruel Citadel. Under normal circumstances, this place was overrun with Shambling Revenants. Tonight, though, their bodies lay around the gravestones, overtop vaults, and hanging halfway out of mausoleum doors. Somebody else’s party must’ve come through and wiped these low-level mobs while he was respawning.

Good news for him. Scott didn’t have time to waste on Shambling Revenants. At ten-thirty he had to be at Taco Bell for the munchies shift, serving up reheated chalupas and floppy tacos to stoners. The wonder twin rejects Kevin and Kellie—better known as Dude_Farkowitz and RogstarKel when they were playing their alts—had already logged out for the night out of frustration after the failed raid. Well, screw ’em both sideways and upside down. PwnrBwner_OG didn’t run away crying like a baby when he died. You didn’t get to be a level twenty-frigging-two High Combat Cleric by giving up in this game. No, PwnrBwner_OG was going back to get his shit.

And not just that, he was gonna pwn that little shithead Roark. Him and his stupid crew of reject freaks. Maybe not on this run, but he’d get him eventually. 

Scott paused at the gate and spoke the ritual prayer to the High Combat Cleric’s god, Rajthorne the Mighty, to cast Shield of Blades on himself. A spherical barrier of ghostly swords surrounded him, shining pale lavender, then disappearing. The only sign he was still protected by the spell was the double circle of lavender light around his feet, but any enemies who walked into the barrier would instantly take 22 points of slashing damage—one for each character level, stackable if he backed off and ran them through the invisible meat grinder again.

Sufficiently protected, Scott equipped the Three-Headed Cerberus he’d bought at the Averi City market in his right hand and readied a Wreak Injury spell in his left. He gave the lever outside the pitted iron portcullis a kick. Chains clanked somewhere inside the walls, and the heavy grating gave a rusty screech as it rose as if it was trying to get the attention of everybody within a hundred miles.

Eyes scanning the moonlit courtyard for movement, Scott slipped inside and cautiously made his way toward the crumbling staircase that lead down into the Cruel Citadel. 

He had cleared this dungeon at least a couple of different times in various alts. The first few floors were a common gold and XP farm for new to mid-level characters, brimming with easy mobs—though the bottom two levels of the dungeon were a nightmare. 

At least it had been until about two days ago when that Griefer chode started ganking him. From the very beginning, Scott had known there was something weird about that Changeling. Either the devs were trying to restructure the Citadel without telling anybody—a total dick move—or Roark the Griefer was some modding asshole dressed up like a mob and hiding out in the dungeon to steal loot for his main. That was the best explanation, after all a literal online Troll? That was just too on the nose to be anything other than some douchebag modder. Supposedly, the studio’s security had cleared up every backdoor that allowed hackers to do that with the 5.9 patch, but Scott knew that if you locked a door, a hacker would just write in a window and smash it open.

Whatever it was, this shit had to stop. Scott was going to teach this body-camping Troll a lesson. He just had to recover his OG gear first.

A shadow by the staircase caught his eye. A little trash mob, level two, all scrawny blue arms and legs and jiggling potbelly. The Changeling should’ve attacked Scott as soon as he stepped inside the creature’s aggro zone, but it took one look at him, turned on a heel, and darted away, disappearing into the inky depths of the stairwell.

Wary of a trap, Scott gave the Changeling a ten-second head start, then slowly—carefully—followed it into the citadel, ready to lash out with his three-headed flail and Wreak Injury spell.

Yep, there it was. As soon as he stepped out of the shadows and into the first room, a pair of Reaver Bats dove screeching at his head. The first one hit the Shield of Blades and died right off, toppling to the floor, its wings still twitching sporadically. The second one had slightly more HP. It pulled out of the dive with its Health bar flashing below ten percent. Scott swatted the flying rat down with a massive overhand swing of the Cerberus. The blow hit like a semi-truck and the creature’s bones crunched like potato chips under the spiked balls. It hit the floor in a spray of gore, dead.

A croaking shout of pain rang out behind Scott just before a blunt object hit him in the back of the head and knocked off a handful of his Health. He spun around to find that level two Changeling swinging a spiked club like a baseball bat. Little blue turd had hidden off to the side of the doorway, waiting for him to come into the room and expose his back, but the Shield of Blades had chopped it up good. Blood dripped from dozens of gashes all over its body, and the Changeling was down to half Health.

Scott slapped it with a Wreak Injury. Green light sliced through the Changeling’s lumpy shoulder, and its left arm dropped, useless. It kept swinging the spiked club with its right, but Scott easily jogged out of the way—the little fartsack was slow as balls—then pushed forward again and fired off another Wreak Injury, shaving away the last of the Changeling’s HP. It tumbled backward into the doorway and died, choking on a lungful of its own blood. Awesome.

Scott spun around, eyes squinted, brow furrowed, looking for more Trolls to kill. There didn’t seem to be any more in this room. He checked the ceiling overhead for the giveaway distortion of Stone Salamanders—those annoying little bastards had literally gotten the drop on him too many times over the last few days—before continuing down the steps and into the doorway to his right. Immediately, he was faced with a fork in the road. He remembered the hallway to his right leading to a dead end full of traps and mid-level Thursrs the last time he’d come through. Probably couldn’t survive a horde of those on his own without his Thorny Armor of Major Casting. He took the door to the left.

That opened into a dining hall where the remains of a feast were strung out around the long table, chairs, and floor. Smoked meats, flagons of mead, and bowls of half-eaten stew were everywhere—the scent of the food enticed his belly into a low rumble. That was another thing. Since when did Mobs cook or eat? Yep. Some bullshit hackery was definitely afoot, though he had no clue why the devs hadn’t swooped in to fix this shit. Whatever. He would fix it for those stupid losers. Despite the food, no Trolls wandered the room or fought over the scraps. No Reaver Bats dangled from the chandelier overhead.

A shadow moved on the wall beside him, not quite right with the flickering torch light.

Scott spun, bashing the Stone Salamander with his Cerberus. The trio of spiked heads hit the invisible creature with a series of dull thuds. Blood splattered the stones and the creature’s Health bar flickered into view. Down by a quarter. The salamander growled and snapped at Scott even though he was out of reach of its needle fangs. He took a step closer, just within range to dice the creature up with Shield of Blades, but the spell timed out and went into cooldown. He wouldn’t be able to recast it for two and a half minutes.

Rolling his eyes, Scott shot a Wreak Injury at the betraying distortion on the wall. More blood flew as he shaved off another slice of its HP. He downed a Mana potion with one hand while he swung for the fences with the Cerberus. It connected, the heads thud thud thudding into the creature’s back like a screwed-up heartbeat. The third one snapped the salamander’s spine. 

“Eat it, assbag!” The creature squeaked in agony and winked into view—all fat and slimy gunmetal gray skin—as it dropped to the floor.

Paralyzed. Scott finished it off easily. Nothing attacked him from behind while he did. That, in itself, sent up more than a few red flags. That Roark was a tricky little turd and seemed to have a million tricks hiding up his sleeves.

Scott climbed up on the table while his Shield of Blades cooldown ran out and kicked plates and scraps around. No Trolls wandered into the room. No Reaver Bats flew by. 

Yep, definitely suspicious as hell. There should’ve been more activity down there. Was this some kind of trap to lull him into a false sense of security, or had whoever cleared the graveyard wiped out most of the first level, too?

If somebody had wiped them out, where were all the mob bodies? He saw PC corpses waiting for their owners to come retrieve their crap, but no Infernal chimeras.

The cooldown timer flashed. Scott recast Shield of Blades on himself.

Protected once more by the sphere of ghostly swords, Scott moved out, slipping down a torch-lined hallway. There were only a few PC corpses here. As he stepped over them, the feeling that this was all some sort of prank started eating away at him. Let’s all pull one over on the awesome Level 22, hahaha! That Griefer cockmouth was probably hiding around the corner ready to spring some bullshit trap. Scott switched his Wreak Injuries for a Lightning Lance, his highest level attack spell.

But when he edged around the corner, Lightning Lance ready to fry some Griefer ass, the hallway was empty. 

What the crap is going on here? Why is this so easy? Did somebody really come through and clean the place out? That might explain why only a few of the mobs near the beginning were there. They’d been the first to die, so naturally they were the first to respawn. Maybe there weren’t any Infernal bodies left lying around because the rest were getting ready to respawn at any second.

To be safe, Scott dropped his High Combat Cleric into Sneak, wrapping shadow around himself like a cloak, and crept down the hallway to the throne room.

The portcullis was already standing open. That Other Party theory was starting to look pretty plausible.

Scott stopped in the doorway, a frown pulling down the corners of his lips as he examined the ceiling and walls all around the throne room. The spiny obsidian throne sat like a tribute to hemorrhoids on the dais, empty and uncomfortable-looking. Tapestries fluttered along the walls, but no visual distortions gave away any invisible Stone Salamanders stalking the room. Even the corners were yawning with empty shadows.

PwnrBwner_OG’s corpse lay in front of the door, less than twenty feet away, hands clutching the broken end of the long, thin stone spear the Griefer had kebabbed him with in their showdown. Complete and utter bullshit was what that was. Scott had searched every inch of the H-boards while he was respawning—in the eight year history of the game, no one in any of the forums had mentioned anything like a stone spear spell. And certainly not one cast by a cockbag Changeling.

Scott checked the ceiling over his OG corpse once more—really studying the shadows thrown between the rotten beams by the glowing stained-glass windows—then stealthed across the stone floor toward the High Combat Cleric’s body.

Nothing dropped on his head, no army of mobs poured out of the doorway leading to the second level over in the corner. Maybe somebody really had come through and slaughtered the Griefer while he was out.

Cautiously, Scott opened up the corpse’s Inventory and started transferring items. It was all there. Not a potion or Crusty Bread out of place. Talk about weird. When PCs died in a place the first time, they were supposed to drop one random item and 2-4% of their total gold, but nothing seemed to be missing. Was it possible that whoever cleared this level out had somehow forgotten to loot the PC corpses on their way? Idiots. He sure as balls wasn’t going to make that mistake. As soon as he recovered everything, PwnrBwner_OG was going to turn around and loot everybody on this level. Kellie and Kevin would assume it was somebody else. Junior would probably assume Scott’d done it, but she was almost never on at the same time he was, so who cared? 

Besides, she would do the same to him.

He finished transferring the Items and traded his Three-Headed Cerberus for his infinitely more powerful Unique Rose Mace of Thorn Tethers, then put on his matching set of Thorny Armor Boots, Gauntlets, Breastplate, and Helmet.

The moment Scott equipped the Thorny Helmet, a notification popped up.

Potent Contact Poison (Rare) Absorbed!

Effect: Immediate loss of life.

The world went black as his Level 22 High Combat Cleric died.

“Shit!” Scott roared, ripping off his CandorSight UIVR headset and chucking it across his living room.

 

Chapter 2

Repairs

A box of text appeared before Roark von Graf’s eyes, obscuring his view of the blade he had just shoved into the glowing red coals. He let off the bellows and read the notice.

[The Potent Contact Poison (Rare) you applied to Unique Thorny Helmet was absorbed by PwnrBwner_OG!

Reminder: Passive kills (i.e., by poison or trap outside combat) yield only 50% Experience points.]

Roark grinned. When he had applied the poison to the dropped piece of armor and returned it to PwnrBwner_OG’s corpse, Roark had told himself he would be satisfied with anyone it managed to take out. Gaining Experience while he was doing something else was just as efficient no matter who the points came from. However, now that he had confirmation that the points had come from PwnrBwner, Roark was forced to admit they tasted twice as sweet. That contact poison had been well worth the pile of gold and newly forged set of Breath of the Cockatrice—steel throwing flechettes with a hollow channel leading to the point for delivering any number of nasty concoctions—he’d traded Zyra.

Macaroni, who’d been sleeping curled with his fat-padded belly pressed to the forge, chirped angrily as if the suddenly motionless bellows had disturbed his nap. Roark dismissed the box and stooped to scratch the Elite Salamander behind its bulbous slate head. Mac gave a second, mollified chirp and returned to his spot, blinking lazily, before shutting giant, gold-rimmed eyes.

With a touch more enthusiasm than before, Roark went back to the longsword his vassals had looted from the fallen heroes in their failed raid. Blasting the blade with heat wasn’t how he’d learned to dismantle a weapon, but that seemed to be how smithing functioned in Hearthworld. 

Another pump of the bellows brought up the option to improve or destroy the longsword. He selected Destroy.

[Warning: Destroying items results in a small amount of materials lost to waste, therefore destroyed items cannot be reforged as they were without the addition of more material. Are you sure you want to destroy this Quality Steel Longsword? Yes / No]

Though Quality weapons and armor was a step up from the Shoddy ones most heroes dropped on their first death in the citadel, Roark had leveled his Blacksmithing Trade Skill enough that he could forge better himself. When he confirmed that he wanted to destroy the weapon, the heavy clang of metal being tossed on a scrap pile rang through the smithy. A page appeared listing the reclaimed components.

[Quality Steel Longsword yielded (1) Iron Ingot, (1) Powdered Gemstone, (4) Rivets, and (5) Leather Strips]

Without looking, Roark knew the new components had also been added to the totals on his Crafting page and Inventory. Over the past hour, he’d amassed quite the treasure trove of smithing ingredients as the pile of scrap items from the raid dwindled. Now only a handful of daggers remained. Once those were dismantled, he would begin forging new weapons and armor to outfit the Trolls of the first floor. An off-rotation group of Trolls milled about the forge now—mostly Changelings, though there was one level 4 Thursr mixed in with the crowd—eager to see what their Floor Overseer would create for them.

Roark returned to the heap of scrap weapons and picked up the daggers, inspecting the blades on instinct. As he went through the process of destroying each one, his mind wandered. As much as he loved working the smithy, with nearly 50 Lesser Vassals to outfit, it wasn’t practical for him to be the only one crafting gear. But from what he’d read about Trade Skills, the only ways to acquire one was by apprenticeship with a Guild or by reading an enchanted Trade Skill Book.

Between daggers, Roark pulled up the Character page for the Level 4 Changeling skulking by the workbench.

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As a Lesser Vassal, the Changeling only had one Trade Skill slot to fill, whereas Greater Vassals such as Kaz and Zyra had two.

Roark frowned as dismissed the screen and plunged the next blade into the coals. Forty-nine unused Trade Skill slots running around. Something had to be done about that wasted potential as soon as possible.

In addition to that, Roark had noticed that a few of the Trolls beneath him were leveling their weapons skills every time they fought, whereas he himself had never gained a single level with his rapier. Even the Level 4 Changeling whose page he’d checked earlier had unlocked a skill called the Backstab Modifier. The few vassals who had unlocked their weapons skills were getting better at combat, but Roark seemed to be stuck with only what he’d known of fighting when he leapt through the portal into Hearthworld. 

According to his mystic grimoire, weapons abilities fell under Melee Skills, which had to be unlocked by trainer, book, or guild apprenticeship before he could begin to level them up. Until then, every hero he fought was wasted potential, not to mention the fact that he couldn’t hope to level up enough to take on the Dungeon Lord, Azibek the Cruel, on his griefing and Trade Skills alone. The Exarch had ruled the Citadel for as long as any of the Trolls there could remember, so odds were good that he was higher than the Final Jotnar Evolution Level of 36. If Roark was going to dethrone that tyrant, he needed experience points coming in from all the areas he could get.

No matter which way Roark looked at it, a trip back to the Averi Marketplace was becoming unavoidable. He could search Mogrifa & Mogrifa for a Melee Skill book for himself while finding Trade Skill Books for his Lesser Vassals. With their recent influx of gold and saleable loot, they might be able to afford as many as a dozen.

Roark finished dismantling the final dagger, then forced himself to go straight to the workbench and select a set of scrolling pliers to start making Superior Ringmail Shirts. They were the cheapest material spend to Armor rating, and they had no Strength or Dexterity restrictions, so even the Changelings could wear them. 

What he really wanted to do, however, was craft something from the pair of Obsidian Ingots he’d acquired from a Double-Bladed Battle Axe found on one of the heroes’ corpses. He’d never worked with the black lava glass before. Still, he resisted the terrible temptation, forcing himself to complete four Ringmail Shirts, two sets of Fulgurite Gauntlets, and a myriad of wicked-bladed Steel Machetes, Khopeshes, and Falcatas. 

While he was at the grindstone improving the newly forged items from Quality to Superior, another notification appeared.

[Congratulations, you have leveled up your Blacksmithing Trade Skill to Level 7! You may now improve and repair Enchanted weapons and armor.]

Very interesting. He would have to try that later with some of the enchanted items they’d looted. But for now, he had a date with some lava glass. After all, keeping promises to yourself was just as important—perhaps more so—as keeping promises to others. That was the way of self-discipline.

Roark fished out the Obsidian ingot from his Inventory, tracing the intricate whorls and lines on its surface with the pad of his thumb and grinning with excitement. If there was one thing that made him feel like a child holding a brightly wrapped present, it was smithing with new materials.

At his thought, a page appeared listing the items he could craft from the Obsidian, along with slowly rotating images of each option. He read through them and was about to choose a Tower Shield for its impressive defensive numbers and gorgeous lines when he caught sight of a new category at the bottom: Repairs.

The page turned to reveal an image of Neveret’s Last Laugh: the eyeless, mouthless mask he’d found in the hot coals of the torture chamber what seemed like ages ago. He’d used the mask early on to defeat PwnrBwner and his miscreant crew of heroes. A crack angled from where the mouth should’ve been across the left cheek to where the wearer’s ear would sit.

[To repair Neveret’s Last Laugh, you will use (1) Obsidian Ingot, (1) Iron Ingot, (2) Powdered Gemstones, and (8) Rivets. Repair? Yes / No]

From Roark’s limited experience with the mask, he would never have guessed Obsidian had gone into its making. He knew different kinds of gemstones were used in Enchanting, though he’d had no chance to try it out for himself yet. Did the Powdered Gemstone in the mask power its enchantment?

Intrigued, Roark selected yes. 

Though this was his first experience with lava glass, the knowledge he’d gained from Trade Skill books led him through the process as if he were a master. First, he settled the Obsidian and Iron into a large crucible along with a fistful of Powdered Gemstones. Then, he picked the melting pot up with tongs and stuck it in the forge, the muscles in his back straining with effort, perspiration dotting his brow and trickling down his chest and back. Lucky he was a Jotnar now. As a Changeling, there was no bloody way he could’ve managed to lift that.

After a few minutes spent stoking the heat up to the right temperature, he grabbed the mask with the tongs and stuck it into the bed of glowing coals beside the crucible. The metal began to blush and soften. Roark grinned to himself, his brooding over skill levels forgotten, and pulled the mask from the fire. The next several minutes were spent pinching the crack closed and hammering rivets into it.

Roark had been concerned the work would be made awkward by his new height—when he’d evolved into a Jotnar, he had grown to nearly seven and a half feet tall—but the anvil seemed to have grown with him. It sat at the perfect height.

With the crack fastened together, Roark returned to the forge. The Obsidian and Iron in the crucible had melted and mixed with the Powdered Gemstone to form a brilliant yellow compound, not so different in appearance from liquid gold.

Carefully, Roark used the tongs to pull the pot from the fire. He took it to the workbench where a small, hinged cast sat magically open and waiting. Sparks flew from the mold as he poured half of the molten Obsidian-Iron compound into the bottom. As expected, the liquid stone settled into the nadir of the bowl. Roark grabbed the mask and lowered it in place with a hiss, pressing the fiery mixture up the sides in an even layer. Then he added the rest of the Obsidian and Iron, closed the cast, and screwed shut the bolts so it wouldn’t shift as it cooled.

Roark took the Iron Gauntlets of Minor Endurance they’d taken in the raid to the grindstone while he waited—planning to improve the few enchanted items they had—but found his gaze returning over and over again to the workbench. Finally, he set aside the gauntlets and checked the cast.

Whereas back in Traisbin, it would have taken hours or even overnight for the mask to finish cooling enough to open the cast, in Hearthworld it took only a handful of minutes. Roark unscrewed the bolts holding the halves together. The mask had shrunk as it cooled, so the top piece came away easily. Roark lifted the repaired mask from the mold.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Neveret’s Last Laugh

Durability: 52/52

Armor Rating: 12

Properties: Grants the wearer 100% resistance to unenchanted weapons at the cost of (2 x character level) HP / second!

“You can only listen to a bloke run his mouth so long before you’ve got to shut it for him … permanently.”

╠═╦╬╧╪

He dismissed the information with a thought and returned his attention to the mask.

Hells, it was beautiful. In the red-orange glow from the forge, it shined a rich jet like spilt ink. Roark turned the piece over in his hands, reveling in the contrast between his smoke-white fingers against the mask’s luxurious black. Looking at it, he could almost forget the thing was meant to burn a man’s eyes and mouth shut.

“Are you going to wear that thing or mate with it?” a dusky voice from behind Roark asked. “Because the rest of us would like some warning if we need to leave the two of you alone.”

Resisting the urge to guiltily tuck the mask away in his Inventory, Roark slowly turned around. Just because he’d been caught admiring his own handiwork was no reason to react like a youth caught ogling a bawdy painting … though the grouchy old bag of a mage-smith Roark had been apprenticed to at the academy had always treated the two as equally depraved.

Zyra was crouched by the forge, patting Macaroni’s sides fondly. Her expression was hidden in the shadowy depths of her ever-present hood, but when she stood, the slant of her shoulders and hips conveyed the laughter her face couldn’t.

“Some of my best work yet,” Roark said, deciding to take the honest, if slightly conceited, road. He held out the mask to give the hooded Reaver a better look at it. “Not counting your new flechettes, of course.”

Zyra waved one leather-wrapped hand.

“You don’t have to worry about me getting jealous and stealing your fancy trinket, Griefer. I prefer the sorts of masks you can see out of.” With a lazy rotation of her wrist, one Breath of the Cockatrice appeared in her fingers. “Besides, these little beauties still have that new weapon shine to them. They just helped me take down a pair of heroes and level up my Ranged Attack. I’m just here to give my compliments to the smith.”

Roark’s brow furrowed as he recalled his resolution to search out Melee and Trade Skill books. He scratched at his jaw with one black claw.

“We need to find Kaz,” he said.

“I said smith,” Zyra enunciated, “Not chef.”

“I know, but he’ll be brokenhearted if he misses a trip to the marketplace.” Roark returned the mask to his Inventory and headed for the smithy door. “Come on.”