Olrica

North Periphery, Ujax Forest, Fander Field

"Hallelujah, clear skies at last," I proclaim dramatically, feeling relief at the thinning tree line as we slowly return from our latest foray into Wolf Lord's Remains alongside the main force of Wolf Hunt, "The bathrooms are done, yeah? I call dibs."

"Fuck you, get in line," Jade flips me off, "I'm 3 for 2 on kiting big and frothy now. You could solve droughts by wringing the sweat out of my sleeves."

"You also got a piece of new gear, so kindly step aside for your junior~" I plead with the small fox woman.

"Pft, no," she snorts, "You lost the coin toss, suck it up. These shoes are mine, bitch~"

I open my mouth to fire back, only to stop in place, feeling a shiver going down my spine as we prepare to leave the forest. Jade does the same, her mocking face turning just as serious as mine quickly. I guess we noticed that, huh?

"Pass the word on," she orders, rushing to the front to talk to Jericho, pointing to the back.

Technically, she is my direct superior as an Officer, which I'm suddenly reminded of. Even without that though, I don't see any reason to argue with her decision, and am about to make good on it when the forest lights up with dozens of Minor Ignites shooting through the trees, accompanied by arrows. A few people on the perimeter who were ignorant of the danger and still weakened from the day's exertions fall immediately.

"AMBUSH!" Jericho roars, "Form up, PKers incoming!"

My first instinct is to activate my stealth skills and separate from the group. Not to abandon them, mind, but so I can move towards where their ranged contingent is located. I restrain the impulse - instead looking to the opposite direction on a hunch, and notice the flitting of shadows amongst the tree branches. My Perception might not be fantastic, but the Level difference must be doing something to compensate.

"Assassins from the other direction!" I call it out, running out to intercept, drawing the daggers Henna made for me to replace the dross I lost during the fight against Silver's inner demons. From an estimate, there's about a dozen of them heading towards the group, all equipped in Trophytaker gear. I heard that the appraiser we broke out of jail came back this morning, so that's probably why they feel confident in taking us on at this timing, even if we are tired from the dungeon.

It doesn't change much, but it means that I can't bully them as much through the difference in stats and equipment. No doubt my knives are better than their weaponry, but I'm still wearing the same equipment as them otherwise. Compared to them, who apparently have enough money behind them scrounged together to pay the appraisal fees for all this gear, I feel a little inadequately equipped.

Not going down without a fight either way. I'm worth at least four of these bozos on my own - if I had to guess - except that without crossing blades, there's no way to be certain of that estimate. I know full well that I'm good at what I do, but I'm hardly the best, nor in the best condition. Fighting a horde of dogs is stressful, tiring work.

With an almighty leap, I reach and kick off a tree trunk and gift a flying dropkick into the closest assassin's face, knocking him off his perch to the ground. The recoil travels mostly along my lower back, jolting it uncomfortably. It's not a very large drop, so ultimately it just stuns him rather than killing him outright, but I'm already descending along with him, landing heavily onto his stomach, stunning him a second time - enough for me to ram a knife through his eyesocket to finish him off. No Skills required.

If the others are like this guy, I'm feeling pretty confident. Two of the approaching assassins vanish from view, while the others continue onward, ignoring me. They have a purpose, and I'm not it.

The group behind me has entered into a pitched battle from the sounds of it, which isn't helping me any in detecting the approach of the two stealthed attackers that are no doubt coming for my ass. A slight depression in the grass to my left is the only warning I get to the approach of one of them, and I guess immediately that the other must be hopping the tree branches.

With a smirk, I jab at the spot where a second depression appears with a lunging strike, steel meeting terrorstone as my knives clash with a shortsword and dagger. He looks surprised to have been discovered, but not so shocked as to forget to defend himself from my attack. The recovery period also gives an opportunity to the second guy, the sound of wind rustling cloth from above and behind me.

A buzzing whine cuts through the tension, an arrow dropping the show-off out of the air from what must be 20ft. Impressive shot.

Taking advantage of the distraction, I hop back, then forward again with a kick underneath his raised guard into his chin, staggering him and giving me a chance to activate Assassin's Haze. It won't make me vanish entirely like Camouflage could, but it'll give me an edge in a direct fight for the duration where it would just dissipate the moment I struck a blow otherwise.

It's admittedly a little strange for my Class to give such an option, but it matches my preferred fighting style. I'm not really a true 'assassin' type, in the unseen ghost kinda way, if ya feel me. I just like having the option of going relatively unnoticed so I can get where I can do the most work. Unseen is an exceptionally strong opener, in that sense, even against a tank if I pull it off. See, I'm of the opinion that if you're going to be going in anyway, the moment you get your first kill you're basically gonna get dogpiled by their friends immediately after, so being able to hold your own when your path of retreat is cut off is a necessity.

The guy I'm fighting is evidently of the same mindset since he wields a sword and dagger in concert, something you don't really need to do if all you care about is that one big dick crit energy. At least when the game you're playing balances us rogue types around daggers with big modifiers for backstabbing and shit, which I don't think Astral Reckoning does, but it's still not something you do just because.

Case in point, he's holding his own now against me thanks to the slightly longer reach, and it's not looking fantastic for me the longer this goes on. I'm going to need to get a little trickier, since the buff on me doesn't seem to be bothering him too much.

"You're better than I was expecting," he mutters, "No wonder the first and second ranks had trouble with you..."

"Praise me more," I giggle coquettishly, "I'm gushing downstairs."

Unsettled, he misses the timing on a parry and takes a slash across his wrist for the trouble. Ah, a prude, huh? I was just joking, but I can take advantage of that. People think that making people angry is the best way to taunt someone into making mistakes, but from experience, anything that throws a person's rhythm off is fair game.

"Hey, you wanna see what's under here that badly, huh? Is that why you keep going for my boobs?" I smirk, taking maybe a little too much enjoyment in taunting him. It has the desired effect, though. Even without saying anything, he's started to avoid strikes at centre mass a little, perhaps subconsciously.

Unfortunately for him, that means his attacks are trailing wider arcs than before, which leaves an opening in his own torso I can exploit. The moment I notice a good timing, I suddenly squat down and launch myself through the gap he leaves, ignoring his free-hand's dagger as it embeds itself below my collar as both of mine take his neck and heart.

"Aww, you managed to stick it in, but you're done already?" I laugh, mostly to myself since he's dead a moment later. With a grunt, I yank my new trophy - pun not intended - out of my chest and stow it. Back with the group, things have deteriorated quickly while I was occupied, and the majority of Wolf Hunt has perished. There's more than three times their number surrounding them, and for the moment, nobody appears to have noticed my scuffle resolving in a victory for me over here.

Not really feeling all that great about it, I make the executive decision to leave them to their fate and get back to Meteo ASAP. There's no way for me to make a difference in that brawl, and I've already done what I could to thin out their expert assassins. With that in mind, I take the other drops off the corpses, and start running.

---

 

Sherry

Earthly Vault, Cathedral of The Starlight Truth Faith, Meteo Town

Son of a fucking bitch.

That marks my second death, dogpiled by like, five assassins. Took down 3 of them with me, but I didn't get very far before a knife lodged itself in my head, thrown from a good distance after I managed to break out of the encirclement with my jacked Agility and speed buff. I'd be impressed, if I weren't so fucking upset.

Now I'm oily again. Ugh.

"Did anyone get the licence plate of that freight train?" one of the Wolf Hunt bros complains, hefting himself off his table thing.

Then, surprising everyone, a bolt sprouts from out of his forehead, and he drops dead on the floor once again. The fuck?!

"Wh-Exie?!"

"Exie's dead!"

My head whips around to the end of the hall, where a dozen shifty-looking assholes are posted up with crossbows aimed at us. The moment I take a step offa here, they'll shoot, is the message I'm picking up on. Must be some kind of spawn protection for as long as we stay on here, I guess?

"Look, one of those Truthseeker assholes is here," one of them points me out with a harsh, low voice, gleeful, "Fuckin' jackpot!"

"Hell yeah!" another laughs, "Hey, come over here, we get a bonus if we kill you back to Level 1~!"

"Here, foxy foxy fox~ Got a treat for ya..."

I feel my blood boiling and express myself succinctly with a middle finger, which only seems to amuse them further. I'll be real, I don't fancy my chances when it comes to dodging every single one of their shots, and I don't have anything that'll make it any easier. Like The Wind won't let me dodge a bolt fired with an estimated draw weight of 500lbs. That's like, 300ft in less than a second.

Fuck that.

Still, it goes without saying that I can't stay in place forever. For all I know, the spawn protection has a definite duration, and I don't feel like logging off and hoping they'll just leave is going to work out either. Not like there's anything I could do by logging out either. I can't really call for backup. Henry and Jupiter are busy today. Win is trying to get the Empire's military to step in with Morn. Angelus is doing alchemy shit in the adventurer guild's basement for Donation Crates. Olrica was with me when the attack came, and the other two are miles and miles away.

I'm basically on my own here.

---

 

Winfrey

Outside Town Hall, Tridor Plaza, Meteo City

"God fucking damn it, that crotchety old vulture is seriously pissing me right the hell off!" I rub my face with both hands, feeling blood rush to my scalp.

"We at least managed to convince him to send a letter this time," Morn sighs softly, "An improvement compared to this morning."

"Yeah, that took way too long, and we've gotta go try and get whatserface, the zom to help next," I grunt, "Here's hoping they're less fucking condescending. Hah, if only."

"From what Silver implied, and from what I'm to understand is a favourable relationship between the manager of the Pioneers' Alliance branch here in Meteo and our Guild, I would hold on to some optimism, ma'am," Morn expresses herself deferentially, which just makes me feel all kinds of uncomfortable.

"Y'don't have to be so formal, you know," I smile awkwardly, descending the last step and moving onwards with her keeping a two-step distance behind me like we're cars in traffic, "I don't bite."

"I prefer to maintain a professional distance with colleagues where possible," Morn states monotonously, "That goes double for those above me in the hierarchy. I apologise if that makes you uncomfortable."

The way she explains it makes it sound like her attitude is the most natural and logical thing in the world, which really just makes the disconnect between us feel more profound - as if no matter how hard I stretch my hand out I will never be able to bridge the gap.

Dearly as I wish to continue, I realise that I'm just flailing my metaphorical arms in the breeze in vain, and trying to force the issue will only serve to alienate her for real. I get the sense that she's like a stray cat, doing as it pleases and only coming close when it suits it or when there's some sort of benefit to do so.

"How are you and Olrica holding up?"

"As well as can be, under the circumstances. I've not had a roommate before, but I admit, I don't hate her company."

"At least you're getting along with someone," I sigh. What kind of life have you lived up 'til now?

Walking down the long main road to the mostly-repaired market district, I get the sense that we're being watched by unkind eyes from multiple angles, my skin crawling. It's all the warning I get before innumerable projectiles descend upon us. I turn and tackle Morn to the ground, covering her body with my own while activating Vanguard's Grit. It won't hold off all of the damage, but every little helps.

-4

-59

-5

-41

-20

-40

-39

To be completely honest, I barely even feel the sting. Between inaccurate shots and my stat pool, I don't even take more than 5% of my total Health in damage under the barrage. The only one that was in any real danger from it was Morn, and thanks to my quick action, she's completely safe, if a little stunned by the sudden ambush. Or more likely, me bodying her to the ground.

"Looks like someone doesn't want us getting to the Pioneers' Alliance," I mutter, as several dozen people rush out of the alleyways and sideroads towards us once the barrage ends, "I'll protect you, if you can keep them from swarming us under."

"Understood," Morn nods seriously, and we separate while she quickly goes through the chant for a spell as she stands. Once she completes it with a flourish of her hand in a swiping motion, a wave of force bowls the majority of them over or into those behind them, sending them all prone in a reversal of fortunes.

Her class, Manipulator, is a specialist in restraining enemies, which, combined with my tankiness, will hopefully buy us enough time for the Guard to show up and dunk these assholes in jail cells. Assuming that's still a thing they're able to do, which, God, I really fucking hope they can or we are completely fucked.

---

 

Astral Reckoning Official Forums

Thread: Hoarders Will Be Punished

Radiant Springwater:

On behalf of the playerbase of Meteo, the members of Darkest Dreamers Alliance formally declare that Truthseekers have lorded their greedy ways over the rest of us for long enough, and are to be removed from the Town effective immediately. This also includes their closest collaborators, Wolf Hunt, and any who would seek to defend them from their karma.

Hoarding worthwhile content, even as the rest of us are forced to make our own entertainment is not something we can tolerate either.

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Merri Ivan:

heeelll yeeeeah

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Ol' Skinner:

Wow. How thick are DDA's hides? You could stop a .50cal with it.

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Jayeon Adan:

+1

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Hex Check:

+1

DDA trying to play hero? lmfao, what a twist

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Eoin Croft:

Get bent Truthseekers

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Star Dove:

Ah, shit, I'm at work so I can't join in. Sorry boys.

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Radiant Springwater:

@Star Dove You've already been removed from the ranking for not participating. Do not log in expecting a warm welcome after abandoning your obligations.

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Star Dove:

Loooool. Bored of this game anyway, see if I care.

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Witchy Brew:

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE THRONE! FANDER FIELD WILL BE WATERED WITH THE BLOOD OF HOARDERS THIS DAY!

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Joe Schmoseph:

wait we're finally taking down Truthseekers? holy shit wait fro me i'm gonna log in.

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