End Online: Volume 3 (3 page)

Beyond the door, torches
light up a large prison devoid of mist. The room is about twenty meters and
four stories tall, with doors made from iron bars locking up individual cells
along the walls. Walkways and ramps criss cross in no particular order,
allowing navigation around and through the large room.

Although, the walkways
have been placed with no systematic order, resulting in a chaotic scene no less
challenging than the labyrinth. There is the option to jump down to a lower
path, but it may not be possible to jump back up.

I am a little curious
about the odd zombie or skeleton walking around. They look exactly the same as
the ones we previously fought, except these ones aren’t walking around in packs

“Analyse!”

My jaw drops and my eyes
widen. I have killed enough of the enemies to be able to garner their
background information. But what caused my shock, was the fact that they were
multitudes stronger than the earlier ones.

“Fen, Matrix, Mason. Be
careful, these enemies may look the same, but they are well over level 100. The
earlier zombies and skeletons are much weaker than these ones.”

A hint of dread came from
my voice, causing the others to stare wide eyed at the enemies.

“At least,” I continued,
“They are by themselves, not in groups.”

“Well, we should try to
take them out from a distance, those pathways only appear to be about one and a
half meters wide. Not to mention the lack of safety rails. There is no room to
properly manoeuvre in close combat, they will have the advantage.”

He has a fair point, it
will be difficult to dodge their attacks when we may risk falling off to the
bottom of the room.

“There appears to be more
iron plate doors in here,” I count three in particular, “They probably lead off
into other areas of the dungeon. We had best go directly to one and continue
on.”

Following our current path
across the room to the far wall, a few zombies come to the edge of their cells,
shaking the bars on the doors as they moan at us. Attracted by the sounds, more
zombies and skeletons come to the end of their cells.

‘If all these doors
were to suddenly open, we would without a doubt be overwhelmed.

I lead everyone around
past the enemies, trying to not let them get me on edge. I travel down a sloped
ramp only to encounter a skeleton. Rotating its head in my direction, it raises
a large curved sword and sprints at me faster than I could believe.

Without any time to react
properly, I instinctively activate ‘Backstab’. Vanishing in the face of its
downward sword blow, I appear from behind to counter attack.

Landing the powerful
critical hit across the back of its ribs, one cracks while the skeletons health
visibly drops by a third. The skeleton ignores the damage and tries to twist
its body to continue attacking me. In the same moment, an oversized spear of
ice comes down and cracks open its ribcage while an arrow connects with the
side of its skull, displacing its balance and causing the attack to miss.

A little irritated again
thanks to the inconvenience of my skill causing the monster to be under the
‘Aggro’ status, I let loose on attacks as well. I don’t bother trying to be
skillful with my attacks. I simply dodge the incoming blade, and swing my
shortswords in the skeletons direction.

It was not my most
impressive appearance, but I did bring the skeleton down.

The moment the skeleton
died, seven of the surrounding cells make a cracking sound. Each has their iron
door break off from the hinges, falling forwards and allowing the trapped
undead out.

“Ah ****.” I curse at my
luck. Not only are the creatures in front and behind us, but some even climbed
out of the cells directly in the middle of us.

No one spoke a word. There
is simply not enough time to. there are six enemies in total, three teams of a
skeleton and a zombie each.

I have the pair in front.
Meanwhile, Fen turns her attention to the ones in the centre of our formation,
leaving Mason and Matrix to deal with the two at the back.

The sound of cracking ice
fills the area as Fen creates stalagmites, launching them at the incoming enemies.
I take the opportunity to throw all my easily available throwing knives at a
zombie as I approach its skeleton partner.

The zombie is much slower
than the skeleton, allowing me to have a few scant moments to fight it one on
one. The speed of the monster is uncanny, releasing attacks faster than every
monster I have met before. I can see how most players consider a shield to be
much more effective than being fast. There are creatures that no matter how
high one might have their agility, they still can’t compete in the terms of
speed.

Well, that is in
comparison to standard players.

Some attacks I could
completely dodge, although I managed to ward off most with the weapon only
grazing me. Nonetheless, it still did a great deal of damage, my armour is terribly
poor for my level.

Bending my knees and
dropping myself down to half my height, I feel the wind from the skeletons
horizontal slash.  Stabbing the skeleton in the sides of the knees, a
sense of foreboding overcomes me.

The skeleton barely even
prepares its next attack, almost immediately swinging the sword directly down
on top of me. At barely sixty percent health, it could be a fatal blow. Almost
as if by instinct, I push off my left foot and pivot with the opposite. While
still crouching, the skeletons sword stops not far from the floor. The skeleton
rotates the blade, only to swing a curved upward strike.

I activate ‘Perceptual
Sight’ for the second time today. Gradually straightening my legs to stand, the
blade tracks my every movement. Running out of options to escape, I give a
final push and attempt to jump over it.

An almost feeling of
weightlessness overcomes me the moment my feet leave the ground. My body floats
through the air, allowing me to bend my back and spin faster. Narrowly, I clear
the blade with a technique similar to that used in the sport where you are
required to jump over a pole at a certain height.

I get halfway through the
backflip, with my head facing the ground, when the wall starts approaching
dangerously quick. I extend my four limbs against the wall to protect myself,
landing with a dull thud. Pushing back off the wall, I reverse my trajectory
before gravity takes hold. I see the zombie is now joining the fight, along
with a second skeleton.

‘Damn it! My ‘aggro’
has caused the skeleton Fen was fighting to switch targets to me.’

Based on my current path,
I am going to land in the middle of them. The only chance is to kill these two
skeletons as I land, which should be easy considering they both have less than
ten percent health left.

‘No! Wait! I know
what to do.’

Focusing my mind and
ignoring  my fall, I create mental images of twin images of me on either
side of the enemies. Once the prerequisite is met, ‘Pincer’ activates. The
skeletons and zombie attack the falling ‘me’ which turns to smoke in the face
of their attacks.

An image of me attacks the
group from either side, but only one of them is a real attack. Only one
skeleton attacks the ‘real’ me. Considering the low health of the skeleton, one
blow is enough to finish it off. The second skeleton also perishes, and
utilizing ‘Backstab’ multiple times, the zombie shortly follows.

Glancing behind me, I see
the other three have long since finished their battles.

“…Told you… Lost doesn’t
like… Interference…”

Fen states it as a matter
of fact way to the other two who looked like they were ready to jump in at any
time.

“You could of at least
taken care of the skeleton that you let go, damn wolf!”

The culprit in question
gives me a mischievous look while the two brothers give each other a confused
look.

“Anyway,” I change the
subject, “It is odd, seven cells broke open and only six enemies came out. Why
don’t we take a look inside these cells.”

Following my lead, we each
start poking our heads into the cells to inspect their interiors. They are all
exactly the same inside. There is not a single window, with a bed as the only
furniture inside. The beds are all long since rusted and decayed, no longer
able to support the weight of a person.

There were no mattresses
either. A couple of mouldy old fabric remnants are there, but nothing more.

The only difference was
the cell which no undead came out from. In this cell, there was a footlocker at
the end of the remains which used to be a bed.

“Everyone,” Sticking my
head out of the cell I call the others, “We have a chest in this one!”

They all casually strolled
in as I opened the chest.

Everyone else seemed
remotely surprised at the loot. It possibly isn’t that fantastic for a dungeon
of this level. But compared to our current experience up till now, it is a lot.

“Well, I will take half,
the other half is for you.” I decide on the distribution.

“Wait,” Mason interjects,
“What about Fen’s share. Surely you aren’t going to take the half just for
yourself.”

“Sure I am, why wouldn’t
I?”

Shock overcomes the
brothers’ faces. Seeing me as an incredibly greedy individual, who can blame
them. Of course, since they are not in my party, they are unaware that Fen
actually isn’t a player.

When the halves didn’t
match up we decided on a coin toss which I fortunately won every time. It even
increased my luck by a point!

The undead also broke out
of the prison cells every time we killed one of the monsters walking around by
themselves. Sometimes four broke out, other times as many as ten. I started
calling it the ‘Jailbreak Phenomenon’.

If ten had appeared during
the initial battle we had, surely we would have lost. Fortunately for us, we
learnt from the first time and were already prepared for them. Using Matrix and
his ‘magic fingers’ we opened the heavy plate iron doors, leading to other
wings of the prison.

If the area we entered was
the central area, then the east and west wings were similar in many regards.
The sizes of the room were slightly different, but they were all four story
monstrosities.

Most people would have
avoided causing the ‘Jailbreak Phenomenon’ considering the disadvantages. If it
was just the experience points I was earning from them, then I probably would
have passed on half the fights and gone directly searching for the boss room.
Except, inside some of the jail cells were extra gold and loot, something I
could not pass up on.

The north wing was a
little different from the others. It was more like an area designated for
solitary confinement. With narrow, straight corridors, all the rooms lacked
even a bed, let alone any chests. There were strangely yellow skeletons locked
up in some of them though. I did an analysis on them and reveal they were
‘Decayed Yellow Skeleton’ at level 180.

Without the loot to gain,
I had no interest in fighting something that could kill me and make all my
efforts to get here count for naught.

We travelled the dim
corridors for hours, occasionally encountering groups of enemies, but nothing
we could not handle. By the time the brick texture of the walls had just
blended into a single piece of grey to me, we arrived at a large double door.
It was vaguely similar to the other locked doors, except, it gave me a bad
sensation magnitudes higher than the other doors.