Slayer. It was what people in Dawnbreak City were already starting to call the leader of the Progenitors in the south. Slayer. Nobody was sure if it was a system-given title, as some reports claimed, or if it was just what the people were attributing to her. But they knew the player’s true name. Azalea, of the Progenitors. Azalea, of Flower’s Rest.
“What a load of rubbish,” Hassan said, slamming down the tankard in his hand. “I can’t believe people are swallowing these lies.”
“I’m not sure that they’re entirely lies,” his drinking companion said. “I think she really did earn that title. I have contact with one of the members of Market Street, you know. He told me that Azalea came into the market with an entire large wagon full of loot. He even claims that there’s more to come from the one raid.”
“So you think she soloed the entire raid, Patsy?” Hassan asked, leaning forward to glare incredulously across the table.
“I didn’t say that,” Patsy was quick to clarify. He inspected his clean white shirt for a moment, flicking off a crumb leftover from his day’s work. “I just think that it’s conceivable. More and more people are getting stronger in this game. Didn’t you hear about those attacks in the lower city the other day?”
Hassan leaned back slowly, his brow furrowing. Of course, he’d heard. Everyone had. Two players, without the support of any guild or party, had laid siege to the base of one of the bandit guilds that operated within the city. They’d initiated a Land Defense Event and wiped out over a dozen members of the Nightfall Marauders. They’d been a vicious guild, and nobody was sad to see them scattered to the winds. But the knowledge that two players had done that, had taken over their base and destroyed their property, was chilling.
He wondered idly why he was ready to believe this rumor, but not the one of Azalea single-handedly killing a raid boss. Maybe it was because he’d started in Dawnbreak, and had seen how quickly the city had fallen to the “bad” guilds. Sure, there were plenty of players that still trod the path of morality, as far as they could in a video game. But they were outnumbered by the players who got a kick out of PKing and raiding other players. Stories of players losing materials, Yemen, and even entire plots of land were common here.
“Well, if two people can do that,” Patsy continued, “Then I don’t think it’s too strange for one person to kill a single boss. I think she had a lot of help from her guild, mind you. But I think that last killing blow, the one we hear about, was her.”
“So you think it was a perfectly normal raid?” Hassan asked, taking another sip of his drink. “You think people are just making a big deal out of it for nothing?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Patsy admitted with a shrug. “There have been a few other raids, and nobody’s stirring up chatter about them. There's definitely something odd about this one. I just don't think it's nearly as fantastical as they're making it out to be.”
To his surprise, Hassan find himself nodding slowly, agreeing with this particular line of reasoning. “I guess we'll never really know, will we?”
“I didn't know about that,” Patsy said, a slow smile showing over the lip of his tankard. “Dawnbreak and Silver Village aren't that far apart, and it might not be that long before someone figures out a way of making travel to and from faster.”
“Ah. I keep forgetting you spawned here. You don't know how hard it is to get here from the village.”
“I've heard the stories. Doesn't it take about a month for just people?”
“Closer to three weeks,” Hassan corrected. “If you level your agility stat, you can run faster and longer before getting exhausted.”
“That’s true. Of course, my agility is almost zero, so I’d have to take an entire month.”
“You could always hire a caravan to get you to the city safely,” Hassan suggested. “Then again, you’re already here. So what does that matter to you, right?”
“Well, I was actually thinking of going to the village.”
“Two wolves on the left!”
The leader of the traveling party called out the warning just in time. Oscar turned, drawing back the string of his bow and releasing an arrow with one casual motion. One of the two wolves dropped with a weak whimper, its body rolling several feet in the short grass before coming to a halt. The other wolf jumped over its body without care, slamming into the shield of the player who was acting as the vanguard.
“Push him away, Alasta!” A voice thundered. The elven woman took a half step back, then, just as the wolf lunged again, smashed the shield into the beast’s head with a grunt, sending it crashing back to the ground a few feet away. At once, a streak of fire flew out of the air just over Alasta’s shoulder - making her glad she’d remembered to braid her hair that day - and slammed into the animal. It let out a piteous screech of pain, staggering blindly on the spot as its light grey fur ignited.
Alasta turned away from the gut-wrenching sight as quickly as she could, moving up to re-fill her position at the front left side of the party. Just ahead, she saw a figure break from the shield wall, charging forward with two powerful swipes of his sword. Each of those attacks found a different target, carving through two different goblins and dropping them to the ground.
“Excellent!” Kyraa called, from atop the small hill several yards away, where she had a good view of the entire field. She pointed one arm to the right flank, where nearly a dozen wolves lay slain on the dirt. “Those of you with high Gathering, skin those animals! We’ll add them to the war profits! Everyone else, spread out and form a perimeter!”
At once, four figures wearing large backpacks hurried over to the lifeless bodies of the wolves, drawing skinning knives as they approached. Everyone else moved in different directions, either forming a loose circle of defense or moving inward to where a quick tent was already being erected. Caius was one of them, pausing only long enough to wipe the blood of the two goblins from his blade before sheathing it.
“Not bad so far,” Riley commented, appearing out of the crowd on Caius’ left. “You’d almost think those rumors were wrong.”
Caius offered no reply, verbal or otherwise. He knew what Riley meant, though. This raid, a new discovery, was probably one of the biggest they’d taken on so far. It was also the strangest, with varying levels of difficulty. That last wave, a mix of goblins and forest animals, had been easily handled. The wave before it had consisted of nearly four dozen bandits. Four waves before that, they’d had to tangle with a giant eagle that kept swooping down, picking up their members, then flying back into the air to drop them to their deaths.
The command group, consisting mainly of the leaders of Sisters of the Night and of The Progenitors, was gathering in the center of the wide protective screen of fighters. Kyraa shook her head as they came together, a dark expression in her eyes. “How the hell did a raid spawn right as we were making our way through this area?”
Again, Caius had nothing to offer on this particular subject. In any event, it didn’t seem as though Kyraa expected a reply. “Dozens of players have made the trek along this road between Dawnbreak and Silver Village. Why is it that when we go to do it, there’s a fucking raid? We don’t have the supplies for this!”
“Maybe it’s something to do with the number of players that are taking the trek,” Riley suggested. He cast a glance to the side, meeting eyes with Caius. “It wouldn’t be the first time a game triggered events based on player count.”
“Okay, but how do you explain that damn eagle?” Kyraa shot back, her temper too high to discuss the matter rationally. “That bastard was a B-Rank monster! It killed a dozen of us!”
This was true, though those dead members had managed to return to the group easily enough without encountering any more monsters, and had reclaimed their lost gear and Yemon. Still, it had been a frustrating incident for them. Despite the experience of the two guilds leading the effort, most of this large group hadn’t encountered a raid yet and were having trouble coping with the experience. It was the first real glimpse that this game had harsh consequences.
“I’m frankly surprised Azalea’s handling it so well,” Riley said. “I never thought she’d want to leave her farm, let alone not complain at a raid like this.”
Azalea had agreed to their idea of traveling to the city without much complaint. Though she seemed regretful to leave their property and her farm behind, the Sisters had formed an alliance and agreed to defend against any raids that might harm them. Her reason for agreeing, as she’d explained it to them, was to see if she could learn any new recipes in the city, or even perhaps open up a trade route. Azalea was quickly growing as a trader in this game and had a real business knack.
Just now, she was in the defensive screen, professing a dislike of command group meetings. Caius suspected she was just avoiding Kyraa’s temper. Lately, she and the guild leader of Sisters of the Night seemed to be at odds, and couldn’t get through more than ten minutes of conversation without either growing annoyed. As he glanced over in her direction, he saw her chatting amicably with the comrades to her left and right. She’d gained a lot of popularity ever since gaining that Slayer title, he thought with a slight grin.
“So,” he said, speaking for the first time that meeting. “What’s the plan now? If we keep facing threats like that, we might not make it to Dawnbreak. We could very well be wiped out on the plains here.”
“Well, obviously, we don’t want that,” Kyraa retorted, starting to get control of her emotions. “We have so much loot and money between us that we can’t afford to lose. With Silver Village unable to buy it all, we have to get to the city. It’s the only way we have of selling our stuff. We’ve run out of storage space.”
So a silent agreement to continue was formed among the group. Quite apart from their loot, they’d also signed Contracts with the extra players that were acting as security and had paid half up front. So if they abandoned the goal now, they’d lose even more. It was better, they decided, to keep pressing on. When they reached Dawnbreak City, they would more than earn back their expenses and lost costs.
“Let’s try to speed it up a bit, though,” Kyraa said. “We’re moving too slow as it is. We’ll increase our pace, and have our scouts keep an eye out for threats. There’s no sense in marching in formation if nothing’s attacking us.”
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