The Golem, Meteo City

Though after making a fair bit of distance we stopped running, we didn't lose our sense of haste on our return to The Golem. Windy has by then finished her purchases and stands outside the now open bar, holding Jade's new bow - courtesy of Austal.

"Hey guys," Windy greets us, "All done?"

"It would appear so," Angelus nods, "Did you not get the completion for the Quest, Windy?"

"Yeah. Got a Title from it called 'Junior Detective'. Pretty useless to me if I'm honest," the tank laments.

"Better than no Title at all," I point out, "Plus, assuming that it's just a less-effective version of 'Detective' which I got. Having an easier time interrogating NPCs is definitely not useless for a number of different Quests, but it scaling off your Charisma will definitely limit it's effectiveness, I'll admit."

"As if Charisma isn't a dump stat for me," Windy complains, "Do I look like a Bard to you? That's me assuming that that's a Class in this game because it's archetypical."

"There's a few flavours of Bard, yes," I concede, "Not counting any Legacy Classes or the like."

"Legacy Classes?" Angelus enquires, thoughtful.

"I'll explain some other time," I sigh, "Jade will likely be getting one once she hits Level 20, but there's a lot of preparatory work before that."

"Work?" Jade looks at me with disgust, "What work?"

"You'll need to get yourself some more Crafting training done if you want to be able to make your own guns, because I remind you that they are not easy to come by otherwise," I explain patiently.

"Ah. Fair enough, I suppose," Jade accepts the explanation easily, "Does that mean that I can make a minigun?"

"Maybe? I have no idea what your Legacy Class will let you do if indeed it is what's being given to you, and my knowledge of the hidden crafting subclass Mechanist is flimsy at best," I demur, "We're getting off-topic, though."

"What did I miss?" Windy prompts.

"My Class Mentor is the unwilling pawn of an Archdemon's right-hand man, he sold out the Blacksmith NPCs father to him, and that same Archdemon is breaking free of it's subterranean prison under Fander Field. Now we have to free some other person from prison while we're at it because they have evidence that needs to be taken to uncorrupted government agents," Angelus summarises, "I believe that covers everything?"

"That's the gist of it, yes," I affirm, "Geronil is a Level 15 Elite Boss enemy, and a Trapper with the rare class Demon Contractor. He's the main antagonist of Meteo City - not counting his master, Arevas, who is so far out of our weight class it might as well have a gravitational pull."

"So, we're just going to ignore the escaping demon?" Jade snarks.

"For the moment. If he was able to circumvent his prison, he'd have done so already. Without his Beak to feed him sacrifices, the progress of his escape will stall until he recovers enough strength to empower a new agent to restart the process," I speculate, "In any case, that's where things stand, so all that's left is to wait for Olrica to arrive."

---

 

Quiet Alleyway Near City Jail, Meteo City

"Ah, you're finally here," Hadrian greets us after Olrica leads us to their gathering point.

"Yes. I assume you're still on-board?" I ask as a courtesy.

A Kon woman named Quan Youzhang acknowledges me, "Until alternative methods are discovered, the Repair NPC's loss can't be tolerated, even accounting for our promise of cooperation."

"My armour is crying for repairs after so many attempts at the new dungeon," A Quirstic Fighter named Astra Solar laments with characteristic quirstic blandness.

"Speaking of which," One of the Vice-Leaders of Rambling Rose, a Firm woman named Generous Morning speaks up, "How were you able to deal with the Identification restriction on the dagger you gifted Olrica?"

I smile innocently, "I can handle that for an appropriate fee. How does all of your Terrorstone sound?"

"All of it?" She raises an eyebrow, "Since we have yet to find a use for it, I don't know if that's possible right now."

Hadrian sighs, "Just let him have the damn rocks. I assume it's the main material used in the crafted variants of the boss drops, which means without the Schematics it's useless to us."

His officers think it over and come to an agreement. Generous Morning observes me calculatingly, "What payment would you take for fashioning this into equipment for us?"

"Unfortunately, that will not be possible at the moment. Once this Quest is over, we will be leaving the city for a while for our own safety," I deny them, a little disappointed I can't properly exploit them for some extra funds, "Once this whole mess is dealt with, and I have access to a forge again, I will consider any offers you have."

"Understood," Generous Morning nods, "Do you have any idea when that will be?"

"Afraid not," I raise my hands in defeat, "That's out of my control."

While in truth, the event where Geronil loses his shit and starts activating his stockpiled traps and sleeper agents across the city probably won't be triggered immediately, we still have a dungeon to do, and it doesn't benefit me in any way to admit that.

After completing our transaction and unlocking a few pieces of equipment for Rambling Rose, I clear my throat to gain their attention.

"The moment we set foot in the building, City Jail will be converted to a pseudo-dungeon for a duration of exactly one hour. If we fail to find the three prisoners and extract, the restrictions placed on the Jailers will be released and we will be decimated. I propose we split into two groups once inside: One to control the main building and retrieve all their documentation, while the other goes into the cellblock below ground to locate the prisoners."

Hadrian frowns, "Three prisoners?"

"A player named Jupiter Trail who got grabbed a week ago while attempting a related Quest, a man named Trom, and Henna herself. These are all required for full completion," I inform them.

Collectively, the gathered members of Rambling Rose become distracted by what I can only assume is a Quest window popping up.

Hadrian nods, "I see..."

"What're the details of your version of the Quest, out of curiosity?" Angelus probes.

Olrica answers him, "It's called 'Jailbreak'. Silver Nosster has requested your help in freeing three people from prison. Rewards a Title, and a spicy three level penalty for failing, hot damn."

"Players can give out Quests?" Generous Morning mutters in askance.

"No, but some can be shared in part or entirely," I explain, "What are your thoughts to that plan?"

Another officer present, Harn Terr scratches at his beard, "Sounds reasonable to me. Who's going to which teams, though?"

"Are we splitting by groups?" Quan Youzhang guesses.

Hadrian looks to me for input.

"The majority of resistance will be in the building itself, so I recommend that Windy and Jade stay up top with you, while Olrica, Astra, Dennis and Angelus come down below with me. I'm the only one who knows what Jupiter and Trom look like, while Jade and Windy are the best equipped, so they'll be of more use topside," I propose, "I'll also need a competent Scout to deal with any locked doors and patrols, so Olrica is perfect for that."

"Dennis will stay up top," Hadrian denies, "Yopha will go instead."

I shrug, not particularly caring either way. Nuker-type Hedge Mages are pretty interchangeable at present.

"What will happen after we complete the extraction?" Generous Morning probes again.

"We go our separate ways. So long as you don't leave any witnesses, you should be able to vanish into the crowds, but we're going to need to get the newly freed jailbirds to safety, so we'll be taking them with us out of the city," I finish, not elaborating on how exactly we're going to pull that off or where we're going.

With everyone on the same page, we all sign a System Contract to ensure no friendly-fire or tattling to the City Guard, and start the operation.

---

 

City Jail Exterior, Meteo City

The sight of almost twenty players gathered together with a mix of Miner's Nightmare equipment scattered unevenly throughout approaching City Jail is eyecatching to say the least. When we reach the front door of the austere, three-storied stone building that looks more like a carved block of granite than anything else, I receive a prompt from the system.

 

 

"Are we all ready? There's no stopping once we're inside," I call back.

"Rambling Rose is ready for anything, Mr Nosster," Hadrian smarms.

"Hurry up, I wanna shoot some pigs," Jade whines.

Not hearing any objections, I hold my hand up to the doors and focus on the 'Yes' option.

My vision swims, and at once we find ourselves transported directly inside of the reception area. Not needing any further prompting, we organise into formation and make our way further inside, Hadrian killing the Civilian NPC manning the reception desk with a cast of Minor Ignite as we move, not giving them the chance to raise the alarm.

The corridor opens up into a larger hall with staircase leading up, and a pair of City Guards at it's base. To the left and right are doors which lead to different parts of the building, "Prison team with me, we're going right!"

"Stop right there, unauthorised entry is punishable by Rule of Law!" one of the guardsmen yells, drawing his sword before being summarily set on fire by the trigger-happy Hadrian and run through by Windy. The other guard's fate is unclear as we move through the door at speed, but no doubt similar.

From connected offices, the corridor quickly fills with a group of serious-faced clerks and a single square-jawed female Guard wondering what the racket is. The clerks don't appear to be too quick on the uptake, but the Guard draws her blade mechanically and moves forward to engage the intruders.

"Remember, no witnesses!" I call out, not entirely enthusiastic about cutting down non-combatants, but reasonably confident that they're just as corrupt as the rest.

Short work is made of the Guard, getting roughly chopped down by a heavy swing of the Terrorsteel Horrorblade, earning it's first kill and proving why it was designed for damage dealers - an extra boot from the stolid Astra finishes her, cracking open her skull against the floor. Olrica and Yopha take the dirtier job of mowing down the clerks as they try to flee.

None of them contribute any experience, unfortunately.

"Where to next?" Yopha - an avian demihuman like Angelus - asks.

"Straight ahead, stairs on the left at the end of the corridor," I instruct, trying my best to recall the one time I found myself dumped in here after a drunken fistfight with a Trapper years ago, "Olrica, take point please, it's your show from here."

"Leave it to me," the assassin nods seriously, dipping low and running forward with quick, quiet steps.

"Follow at a distance, let's go," I instruct the rest of my team, keeping a good 15 feet between us.

At the end of the corridor, Olrica stops and peeks around the corner. After a moment, she readies her daggers then rushes around it and out of sight, the pained cries of a Guard follow within moments - returning only to beckon us onward before moving ahead again.

Astra grumbles, "Why am I here if she's just going to kill all of them?"

"In case of unforeseen circumstances, I imagine," Angelus contemplates.

"I hope to at least get one good fight in before this is over," the Quirstic complains, spinning his axe by the grip idly.

"The cellblock relies fairly heavily on it's magical enchantments to function, so there's little more than a skeleton crew of jailers and an 'interrogator' down there. The most you can hope for is a Lieutenant performing an interrogation on a prisoner," I tell the bloodthirsty tank.

"Then I shall hold out hope," Astra sighs mournfully.

"I'd have thought you'd have gotten your fill from being pancaked by The Nightmare," Yopha quips, earning an icy glare from her comrade.

"I tripped on the edge of the pool. It was an honest mistake!" He growls.

"Your 'honest mistake' got my happy ass assimilated by that abomination! It's the single most horrific thing I've experienced in my entire life - and I've been through fucking childbirth!" Yopha snipes back, punching his arm.

"Could we please focus on the task at hand?" Angelus questions, annoyed.

"Sorry," Yopha apologises, "How many tries did it take your team to clear it?"

"Once," he replies a little arrogantly, "How about you?"

Astra laughs, "Very funny. How many was it really?"

"It really was only once," I back Angelus up, "No deaths, either."

The Rambling Rose duo looks at me like I just sprouted a second head.

"I could have sworn one of you died along the way, and that was why only four people got the World Announcement," Yopha comments,  disbelieving.

I decide to keep quiet as we get to the bottom of the staircase and meet back up with Olrica, stood beside the slumped corpse of a jailer next to a metal barred door. To either side of us in the square room are long corridors leading to other, non-cellblock rooms. Likely a mix of breakrooms, storage and so on.

"Door's locked, going to need some cover while I pick it - I don't know if it'll set off some kind of magical alarm or anything," the assassin explains.

"Odds aren't zero," Astra notes, a little too excited for my tastes.

"Well, while she works on that, we'll guard this area. Astra, we're up front, Angelus, Yopha, in the middle. I realise that's obvious, but...just humour me," I order.

"Mhm," Yopha agrees, and we fall into our positions.

"Whenever you're ready," I call back to Olrica, the woman pulling a small cloth bundle of lockpicking tools. Lockpicking, for the record, being a subclass skill. Not like Blacksmithing or Woodcutting exactly, but one of a few Miscellaneous skills like trap disarming. It's not exclusive to Scouts, but players who pick it tend to be better at it - the same for Trappers and disarming traps set by other people.

I can handle rudimentary and common traps to a certain degree as an experienced player, but when it comes to some of the downright sadistic security measures encountered in higher levelled areas, I can only bow down to specialists and let the expert in the group handle it. Disabling the lock on a door to the cellblock of a City Jail in even a 1-Star City's City Jail will no doubt award a staggering amount of Proficiency, so this is one of those times.

"Ah! Bastard son of a bitch motherfuck!" Olrica yelps in pain, followed by a low, droning, siren, "It fucking zapped me for 170 damage for touching it!"

I wince at the high damage of the trap, but a large contingent of jailers streaming down the corridors from the side doors demands my attention, "Suck it up, Olrica! Enemies inbound!"

"Come, satisfy this brother!" Astra chuckles darkly, sporting a slasher grin and brandishing his axe.