The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

Crucis charted out his path towards the treasure in the corner of the labyrinth. It was mostly quite straightforwards, as the labyrinth opened into a vast, cavernous area towards the corner. Crucis watched carefully, and saw no signs of movement in this large area, that was still except for the faint sound of a stream of water pouring through the black-grey rocks at the far end. The player on the left was still energetically grinding mobs, and he would probably have the time to pick up the treasure before they let up. The path back to the exit would be difficult, but since it was still late at night he might make it without much disturbance from other players.

While he was planning his path, he had quickly slain a [Blind Boar] that had spawned next to him. It was only level 15, and had gone down after he slashed at its throat a few times. He had found a [Fragment of Silver Orb], an item which granted the [Silver Orb] artifact after you collected 100 fragments. However, it could only be converted into this artifact by interacting with an NPC in one of the royal buildings that required a pass to enter. This made it less worthwhile for him. However, it was probably what the archer was trying to obtain, by killing enough of the creature to obtain the 100 fragments. It wouldn't always drop, but since this area couldn't be accessed by most players it probably had a fairly high drop rate.

Looking around carefully to ensure that he would not be seen, Crucis used [Stealth] and ran forwards towards the direction of the treasure. He only slowed down once he saw a large wall on his left side, guarding a large building. The archer could not see him from behind the wall, so he began to scan the area around him for the treasure. He saw the faint, ghostly white of a stream passing behind a wall of dark stones, and approached it. There was some water on the hard ground beneath him, and he nearly slipped but managed to keep upright by balancing himself on the stony wall. Scanning the wall, he saw a red 'X' painted on the back of a grey stone that was jutting out from the floor in front of the wall. He went up to this, and pressed his hands to the cold surface of the stone. He felt the stone give way, and a faintly glittering, silver-lined chest emerged from the stone.

He lifted the chest onto the stone, and opened it. However, just as he did so, he felt a sharp pain shooting through his left shoulder, and collapsed lightly forwards onto the stone. The contents of the treasure chest entered his inventory automatically, but he hadn't got the chance to inspect them. As he began to look backwards, he saw a thick, wooden arrow on the ground to his left, and realised that his shoulder was bleeding after being shot by an arrow. He was at 85% HP after the strike. A female voice from somewhere behind him said, "Nice treasure, now hand it over." He quickly leapt behind the cover of a large stone on the ground to his left, and heard an arrow bounce off it harmlessly. Turning around and looking around the right edge of the black stone, he tried to get a clearer view of his assailant.

He saw a level 25 female archer named [Melydia] with her bow prepared, taking a few steps closer in order to force him out of his cover. She had shoulder-length red hair, and was wearing a dark green shirt with tight green-grey pants. He knew that, if she saw him break cover, she would fire almost immediately. Further, she was standing in a large, open area, so he would have little cover there. His only chance was to get close enough to her to force melee combat, where he should have the advantage. Using [Stealth], he slipped to the right of the stone and ran forwards, veering slightly to the right in case Melydia tried firing near the stone. He sprinted towards the archer, who was indecisively preparing her bow to fire. As he approached her, he used [Agile Step] to zip behind her and initiated a [Chokehold] from there. He noticed that her Strength was quite low, probably because of a Dexterity focus, and indeed was even lower than his since he had developed his Strength by about 50 points using the stat points gained from levelling to 23. Due to the momentum remaining from the [Agile Step] as he placed the [Chokehold], he pulled her sharply backwards, and then used his Strength to pull her roughly to the ground.

Keeping her face to the ground, he tightened his grip with his right elbow, and with his pained left arm he aimed a [Ripper] slash across her neck. However, Melydia was struggling hard, and he couldn't land a clean hit, instead just grazing her shoulder. Melydia's writhing meant that she accidentally choked herself harshly on Crucis' elbow, and hence went down to 75% HP. As Crucis tried to hold her against the ground to keep her still, he felt a sharp pain in the centre of his left arm. Melydia had managed to draw out a small knife from a brown band around her waist, and stabbed it into Crucis' injured left arm using the [Concealed Strike] skill. Crucis felt a keen sting as he realised that blood was flowing down his left arm, and flinched violently backwards as Melydia scraped around haphazardly with the knife. Melydia shook herself out of the chokehold, and ran away to make some distance between them. Crucis was now on 60% HP, and the bleeding was sapping this over time.

Crucis knew that, if he allowed Melydia to create more distance, she would be able to target him with her bow and he would have to take damage to get near her. Using his higher Agility, he began to pursue her, but she had turned around and began swiftly releasing an arrow while stepping backwards. It was slightly hasty, and grazed Crucis on the left thigh. However, as he approached her, she used [Arrowstorm], and began to rapid-fire arrows at the approaching Crucis. Crucis had been waiting for this, but was surprised by the archer's dexterity. She let three arrows fly faster than Crucis expected, and Crucis took a couple of blows on his left arm and was grazed near his chest, and groaned in a low voice. He was down to 40% HP. However, since his last use of [Stealth] ended before he used any combat moves on Melydia, its cooldown was lowered and he quickly activated it. Rolling far to the right, he watched as Melydia shot a stream of arrows towards his earlier location. Since having to focus on the [Arrowstorm] skill had slowed Melydia's pace, he quickly reached behind her left flank, and stabbed her left shoulder with [Stunning Dagger]. This stopped her arrows, and he used [Ripper] to slice a gash in her arm. She was down to 50% HP.

However, as soon as she revived from the paralysis, she reached instinctively for her knife, and lunged at Crucis. Crucis grabbed her arm firmly to stop it, but then noticed that she was falling down because she had lunged too far and lost balance. Crucis hence relaxed his grip slightly, but dragged her down to the ground using her momentum. He tried to use a [Chokehold]. Melydia was struggling as she fell, and managed to kick at the tired Crucis' feet and send him falling to the ground a short distance away from her. His grip on her neck loosened. He saw that she still held the knife in her right hand, so he reached out and stabbed at her right shoulder with [Stunning Dagger]. With her temporarily paralysed, he rose spider-like across the cold ground and pressed her face and front shoulders down to the ground. However, due to her Dexterity, even in this difficult position she could still wrench out her arm and stab haphazardly at Crucis with her knife, leaving a small cut on his left side and sending him falling to the ground. Both players were stuck on the ground, finding it hard to move because of the pain. Crucis had 30% HP, and Melydia had 40%.

Crucis knew that, if Melydia kept a slight advantage in HP, he could easily get caught up in a disadvantageous position. Thinking quickly, he grabbed a hard, jagged rock off the stony ground, then grabbed Melydia's head by the hair with his empty left hand. He held Melydia's head in place, then smashed the hard rock into it using his basic and typically weak [Punch] skill, causing a deep cut. Melydia's head slammed harshly into the ground. This had dealt enough damage to take her to 25% HP. She was whimpering, and sweating heavily. He went up to her and grabbed her in a [Chokehold], then used [Stunning Dagger] again on her right shoulder as she tried to summon enough strength to strike with her knife again. Tucking her paralysed right arm under her body, which was heaving like a whale, he used his right arm to shove her wounded face into the ground while keeping her in a chokehold. As she cried out, at 15% HP, he could hear her voice slowly fade into a choke.

She whimpered out, "How dare you? What the hell?"

"What's in your bag? Did you pay a lot for it?" he asked nonchalantly, feeling slightly calmer due to the current situation.

"Shut up! Yeah, only a few thousand dollars. But my boyfriend chipped in as well."

"OK, thank him when you get back to spawn. Or maybe later, if he's not in here -"

"He isn't! How dare you bring that up!"

Crucis smiled lightly, in spite of the pain. He had hoped that would be a sensitive topic.

"Look, it doesn't matter anyway!" she said unconvincingly, "I cheated on him, I made out with my Guildie. He's nearby somewhere, I bet he can find me. I told him the directions. He's level 14, don't you dare hurt him! I was fighting the boars because he was trapped in Sanra and couldn't come here for some hours."

Crucis held in a sigh, as he saw the silhouette of a small, possibly male figure tiptoeing carefully around the lair of [Diablo], trying not to awaken the beast. He kicked Melydia to the ground, and said dismissively, "You've become quite talkative. But I should kill you before he comes here, or you'll never shut up."

He used [Black Spot] as he continued pressing her face to the ground, cutting a slit in her neck. She panted, and he finally killed her by kneeing her neck against his choking arm, scraping the slit on her neck against the rough ground.

He didn't want to fight again, since he had only 20% HP. However, he had looted a few items that restored HP while killing other players, and he used a [Greater Goat Potion] to heal 20% more of his HP, restoring him to 40%. He recalled BlackSeed saying that these potions worked based on the nobility of the goat. Perhaps the noble goat was a counterbalance to the evil chicken that is not a chicken?

He watched as the level 14 archer in the distance stumbled his way towards this area. Melydia must have told him a safe set of directions, since he had seemingly been dodging the bosses along his way. However, he seemed a bit confused that Melydia hadn't shown up yet, because Crucis noticed with curiosity that the level 14 archer was walking uncautiously past the broken cage that probably housed a boss. He heard as the hissing noise grew louder, and was soon accompanied by the sound of a large creature pulling itself along the ground. The face of a massive, white snake, with slight, faded pink around its eyes appeared out of the cage, and Crucis heard the frantic male archer start screaming and beginning to run away from this boss. Crucis could see the boss' name, [Spawn of Jormungandr]. It was level 40.