The Wolves Ch. 003

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Pluto

Tombaugh Regio - the "Heart"

11:17

April 12, 2019

There sat a small white crystal on top of a larger green crystal on the highest peak of The Tenzing Montes. Surrounding those crystals, were what looked like communications towers, but made out of the same green crystal that the white crystal sat upon.

The white crystal is very different from other crystals, including the crystals that surrounded it. Indeed, it is the only one like it in existence. The last of its species. The crystal is an artificial lifeform that was created by a race that no longer exists. It was meant to bond with a person and become stronger as their bondmate got stronger. Without a bondmate, they remain as this crystal has; small, though not insignificant. The crystal had a bondmate until he was slain by his enemies and she was crushed. Both literally and figuratively. Though she was not fast enough to save him, she was fast enough to help save his children. For over eleven hundred years, she has sat in this same place. Watching. Waiting.

Earlier this day, she had intercepted a message sent to a ship belonging to the enemies of her former bondmate. Her enemies. She had sent a message to her allies of this fact and was waiting for the captain of that ship to receive new orders.

Without warning, the green crystalline towers surrounding her lit up indicating a signal was being intercepted. It took her less than a microsecond to read the message and she immediately launched herself up off the pedestal she had been sitting on for the past eleven hundred years. When she was a few kilometers above the surface of Pluto, she changed direction and shot off towards Earth.

Her name, as given to her by King Derech Kidravia, is Abi, and she has a new bondmate to meet. Even if he doesn't know it yet.

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Earth

Gatineau Park Dungeon, Quebec

August 12, 2019

11:20 EDT

It took us an hour and a half to complete the first level of the dungeon, and it probably would've taken us double that if Mason wasn't so overpowered. With Whirling Leap, he could jump into a bunch of monsters and do a massive amount of damage. Usually it would only take a few attacks from the rest of us and all the monsters would be dead. The drawback of this strategy, however, was that Whirling Leap has a 60 second cooldown, allowing its use every other group of monsters.

The first level was a winding cavern with a lot of dead ends. It followed the same setup that many other dungeons seem to follow; The first few levels usually consist of beasts that wandered into the dungeon and mutated into what they are now. In this case, it was filled with bats and wolves. The tunnels were mostly clear of beasts, with the majority being in a number of large chambers.

We had to backtrack a few times to figure out where to go to reach the second level. It seems like we hit every chamber on the first level before finally finding the floor boss that we had to kill to continue on. There were four groups of Wolves that we had to defeat before we could focus on the floor boss. It was a massive Alpha Wolf that was lying on a raised area in the middle of the room. It had been sleeping when we entered the room, but opened its eyes when we crossed a certain point. It did nothing but watch us.

We quickly dispatched the four groups of Wolves which caused the Alpha to leap down from his overlook. He wasn't going to give us any time to regenerate mana, it seemed. Mason used Whirling Leap and the large wolf bellowed in pain when the flaming axe head of his halberd cut into its flank. The enraged wolf focused on Mason allowing the rest of us to strike at the wolf with our own flaming weapons.

Our weapons, or parts of our weapons, anyway, were on fire thanks to Ben. He had indeed received some auras from his evaluation. The one he was using when we were fighting the boss is Aura of Flame. It allows Mason, Anja, Sonja and myself to deal additional fire damage with our attacks as long as he is able to maintain it, which isn't very long right now.. Anja and Sonja in particular benefit from it quite a bit, since they attack so often. Anja with her butterfly swords, and Sonja with her Triple Shot skill.

It took us about two minutes to finally beat the floor boss. I was able to move in front of Mason since I would be able to mitigate any damage the wolf would be able to do with my shield. It freed Mason up from defending from the wolf's teeth and claws, and allowed him to focus on dealing damage. The wolf soon collapsed and now nothing was guarding the passage to the next level. We picked up all the mana crystal shards, and the mana gem that remained when the Alpha's corpse disappeared, and descended to level two, which is where we are now.

When we walked down the ramp to the second level, a waygate powered on, which would allow us to teleport back to the surface. In the future, we would be able to teleport from the surface down to the lowest level we reached previously. For example, if we reached level four today, then we would be able to use the waygate on the surface to teleport back down, bypassing the first three levels. Every time the dungeon resets, we would have to start from the beginning, however.

"Let's take a few minutes to get a drink and spent our attribute points before continuing," I said to the team. Thanks to the perk that makes me gain experience 50% faster, I leveled while we were killing the groups of Wolves guarding the Alpha. The rest of the team leveled up after the Alpha died, since he gave so much experience. I opened the Adventurer's Guild app on my phone, putting 5 points into Constitution, and 2 points into Strength before putting it away and taking a water bottle out of my dimensional storage. I was taking a long drink when Ben called us over to him.

"Hey guys, check this out!" He had his phone open to the Adventurer's Guild website. He looked at Anja, turned his phone towards her and said, "Looks like you learning Precognition is pretty big news, Anja. The Adventurer's Guild just put up a post offering 5 million credits to the first person to bring them a Precognition Skill Gem."

"Seriously?" she asked taking the phone to read the article. The rest of our eyes exploded open when Ben told us how much they were offering. 5 million credits is an obscene amount of money.

Sonja was looking over Anja's shoulder as she read the article. She noticed something and spoke up. "Says that that the offer is valid for the next 12 months. There is going to be a massive influx of people trying their hand at high level dungeons. I wonder why they're willing to pay so much for one."

"Who knows. It is potentially the most powerful skill discovered so far. Many people will be clamoring for one. There are people out there who would probably pay more than what the Adventurer's Guild is offering," I added. "Did you all spend your attributes? We have about 7 more hours to get as far as we can today."

Everyone answered in the affirmative and we continued onwards.