The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

"These goblins have tons of gold, wonder if they're all in on some Ponzi scheme," said [SilverBullet], as he aimed his bow at a Goblin that was lying grounded at 5% HP.

"Hope you don't miss," laughed Cael.

The archer's shot flew straight towards the fallen Goblin at close range, killing the creature as it pierced into its chest. "Nah, but I'm impressed that I could hit such an elusive and fast-moving target," he replied chirpily.

The group of four backtracked towards the path, and begun to scan the trees for any sign of goblins. The level 19 SilverBullet was quite talkative normally, but stayed quiet as he nimbly stepped sideways and focused on any signs of motion in the grinding spots. It was mostly rats, or the occasional group of players, but in either case it wasn't what he was looking for.

"Found one," said [BlackSeed], the level 27 warrior, as he skulked up to the edge of the trees to fight a freshly-spawned Goblin. The rest of the group followed him.

The warrior drew his large sword and struck the Goblin's right side with a [Flank Cut], as SilverBullet drew an arrow behind him. Cael used [Mana Push] to push the Goblin to its left, drawing on the momentum of the Flank Cut, and the Goblin fell to the ground. The archer then aimed and let fly with a burning [Fire Arrow] at the grounded target, reducing it to 70% HP. The goblin rolled its small body into an upright position, and struck at BlackSeed with its clawed, deformed hands, with the warrior using a shield to keep it away. A level 12 warrior, named [Ligate], carefully aimed a bow at the goblin, and hit it softly with an arrow that deflected quickly off its body. He wasn't used to using a bow, but had enough Dexterity because he planned to wield the rapier like Byron, and so accepted it as an alternative because close combat would be risky at his level. SilverBullet had handed the warrior a spare, basic bow that he was carrying around.

As the goblin struck at BlackSeed, reaching past the shield, he used a [Shield Strike] to force the Goblin back, and then ran at it with a basic [Charge] move. This skill was typically abandoned by most subclasses other than Berserkers, because it was a slightly rash and unbalanced maneouevre that was unsafe against more powerful opponents. However, BlackSeed seemed to take to it naturally.

While the Goblin managed to strike BlackSeed lightly, it was sent careening back by the clear strike of the warrior's blade against its head, and was slashed across its chest as it fell to the ground. While BlackSeed was planning to become a Knight or Arch-Knight, like Jarius or Justiciar, Cael thought that he seemed to be better-suited for a Berserker build. The Goblin lay on the ground at 15% HP, but rebounded to run at BlackSeed and push him almost to the ground with a claw. A couple of arrows flew at the Goblin, however, and Cael's [Mana Beam] killed it off. Cael received 300 gold from the fight, along with a quest item, called the [Merchant's Goods]. The item's description was slightly garbled right now, but seemed to say to return it to a merchant East of Kruxol with an unreadable name.

Cael noticed BlackSeed moving slightly lethargically after the fight, and asked him if he needed healing. The warrior smiled slightly and replied, "No, it's fine, I have a healing potion called Goat's Nobility, it said that it heals your HP using the life-giving nobility of the goat. It works well enough, I suppose. You should save your MP."

Cael noticed that the warrior still appeared quite fatigued even after the potion had restored his HP. The Goblins were still only levels 12 to 20, and were quite easy pickings for the shield-bearing level 27 warrior with a group supporting him, so it was unclear why each fight was tiring out the warrior significantly.

"Should we make our way back to town now?" asked SilverBullet, "I picked up a ton of gold there, but we shouldn't leave the others waiting."

While Cael figured they might have some time left, BlackSeed also enthusiastically agreed to return to town. They made their way back, with SilverBullet and Ligate checking through their inventory. As they arrived in the town, they were met with a lot of loud chatter, and tried to find their group amidst the many people assembled. Cael saw Hurricanrana, and asked him what was going on. The archer replied, "Oh, a bunch of people worried that they will never see the light of Earth again," and then paused a moment, continuing, "I'm not trying to make anyone uncomfortable, I'm just saying. Like, look at your menu."

Cael was slightly taken aback, but hastily pressed the band on his right hand until the menu appeared. The text on it was scrambled and rearranged into a series of strange pixellated symbols, and each line of text overflowed its bounds and ran over the rest of the menu until the Quit option and Settings menu option were hidden beneath walls of Zalgo-like text. Cael tried to select them, but got no response.

"So we can't quit until the bug is fixed?" he said.

"Exactly," replied Hurricanrana, "and now everyone's worrying about it. But we'll just have to stay in here until the bug is fixed. By the way, the text got screwed up a bit, and that seems to have affected some quests. I have the item for an NPC's quest here, but I can literally hold the item up to the NPC's face and he won't accept it, I think the game is having difficulty scanning the item ID and name. But the items are still there. People are also saying that they can't transfer Guild leadership to anyone else, or promote people to positions in the Guild. It's a bit weird."

"That's screwed up," said SilverBullet, who had walked up at the sound of a familiar voice, "but it just means we'll need to do other quests. Being stuck here isn't great, since I need to be out by tomorrow morning - but hey, there's tons of people in here, I'm sure that it'll make some kind of news. So at least I'll have an excuse." He smiled slightly, then continued, "But I could swear that using my bow for attacks just now was more tiring than usual. Anyone seen anything similar?"

"Not sure, most of these guys are town mice now, they're huddling in the towns because they're confused about what's going on. I haven't heard much about fighting from them. But now that you mention it, Jarius and his gang came back early and they're resting now. Might have been tired out, I guess. Cael, did you feel tired?"

"I'm a mage, it's not that tiring," laughed Cael.

"I suppose not," said Hurricanrana, "that's quite funny, but what's funnier is why I'm not tired. My group got gored by a boar, and they're currently waiting to respawn. So I guess I might as well chill out here."

The other two laughed, and Hurricanrana continued on seeing this, "OK, but what's better? Guarding Byron's corpse for an hour was really dull, so I was a bit impatient when our group set off. The boar? I kited that into our group, by taunting it like 10 times and leading it into the group. I don't think they realised that it was my fault, though, since they were too busy chatting amongst themselves. Well, my Dexterity is quite high, so I managed to escape. The rest of my team was three Knights and a mage, so bad luck." He shrugged slightly.

SilverBullet chuckled lightly, though he was a bit unsure how to react. "So I guess you'd advise me not to join the Guild? I think BlackSeed will join, and the level 12 guy as well. I forget his name. You've been the most unenthusiastic person I've seen here and you're in the Guild, it's funny."

"Yeah, stay out," said Hurricanrana, "Like, it's useful in a pinch, but just before you guys joined us, Jarius dragged everyone along to a dungeon just so that his team could show off, then let the rest of us leave skint. I understand why you'd join, but if you don't want to get caught up in their epic hero's journey, then find another Guild. Most Guilds are casting a wide net right now, so it's a good time to look."

"Why haven't you left?"

"I'll leave someday. I was enjoying this Guild at first, but eventually Jarius took a dislike to me so I haven't had many levelling opportunities. That's probably slowing me down, so I'll have to leave eventually. I'm not really willing to go through that cycle again, though, so I'm holding off until most Guilds settle down and I know what to expect from them."

"That makes sense," said Cael, "I'm also -"

"Guys, I think we should go," said SilverBullet, interrupting and pointing to the West where Jarius was walking out of a small building with his group. The rest of the Guild was gathering round.

Hurricanrana frowned and jogged towards his Guildmates, while the other two followed. When they reached, Jarius was speaking to his assembled Guildmates.

"While a few visual bugs have been noticed, combat is still working well enough for us to do the dungeon," he said, "We can stop short of the boss, if everyone gets too tired, but there should be enough time in between fights to rest. As long as you are circumspect with your use of skills, and take care to heal between fights, the fatigue should be manageable. We have tested this, and decided that the dungeon is still worth doing. Most Guilds are already back to grinding or dungeons, we should not fall behind them. Let us proceed."

The group walked on towards the West of Sanra, further away from Kruxol. They were walking through fairly dense green fields of grass, with a few neutral creatures walking past them. Once, Jarius saw a red-named [Giant Rat], and struck at it hard with a [Flank Cut] that almost killed the rat. A cluster of lower-level players piled on, attacking the rat until it died. "These rats are too brave for their own good," said Justiciar.

It took the group about 30 minutes until they reached a worn, brown path leading to a dungeon. They had been travelling at a slow pace, due to the bug occasionally making low-agility players stumble when the ground ahead of them was rendered unclear. Some players heaved a sigh of relief as they stepped onto the brown path, as navigating the smaller rooms of the dungeon would be easier than a long journey in the present circumstances. The nearby dungeon, known as the Sanra Dungeon, was very well-known as a good source of loot for most levels, and many Guilds used it to strengthen their members and get them good equipment.

A gold-plated symbol of the sun was placed above the dungeon's cave-like entrance, and Cael had read that the entrance led to a stairway down into an underground building. Before the entrance to the dungeon, there was a fairly crowded marketplace. A grey, stone rectangle leading up to the dungeon entrance, bordered by walls and a handful of guards, the marketplace was filled with NPCs and players manning stalls as well as mages standing around offering buffs to players looking to attempt the dungeon. Many of the mages were resting after attempting the dungeon or grinding nearby, so they stood near the entrance of the dungeon and buffed players entering it as a gesture of goodwill. There were about 25 players inspecting merchandise in the marketplace, including some who had been grinding nearby and came to look for good offers. Cael noticed a few low-levelled players, below level 10, browsing the stalls, and guessed that they were probably waiting on Guildmates who were exploring the area.

As Cael's group entered, they split up as a few went to browse the markets. Cael saw a shop that was selling raw gems, items which could be cut by NPCs in towns to give players a random gem which could be inlaid in a staff to increase stats. A few other weapons or features also used gems, but gems were very rare in this early period of the game. As such, most of the raw gems were exorbitantly expensive, with prices reaching 40,000 gold and generally hovering between 15,000 and 20,000 gold. However, Cael saw that one row of raw gem was on sale for only 1,500 gold each, because it was very low-value and could thus only yield gems with the minimum power. For Cael, however, who hadn't come into possession of any gems, it was still a useful purchase and easily affordable. He picked that up, and then retired to a corner where he saw Byron and BlackSeed talking.

Byron greeted him, and continued speaking to BlackSeed, "That quest is quite straightforwards, you don't have to do what the NPC says and fight Ghouls for the drop, you can just enter that house near Sanra with the boss and grab a candle when the boss hasn't respawned yet. The NPC will accept any candle. But I don't know if it will work during this bug." He turned to Cael, "We're chatting about one of the NPC quests in Sanra, they ask for a candle to ward off ghosts. These candles usually only drop from Ghouls, so I'm not sure if they actually ward off ghosts. I think that's the joke."

Cael smiled slightly, "So the poor guy still gets haunted by ghosts after you solve his quest?"

"Yeah, yeah, he even sends you on another quest to pick up a rare charm. I haven't done that one yet, the charm only drops from a level 50 enemy. Hell, I could barely fight Ghouls, but I guess that didn't matter."

As Byron explained a couple of other quests to BlackSeed, Cael's eyes drifted around the market. Jarius was walking around near the centre of the area, talking to a few other Guild leaders who accompanied him. He saw Audet standing right against a wall next to Justiciar, with her armour unequipped to reveal a tight-fitting dark-green outfit. Those two were standing in the corner on the marketplace's right side and away from the dungeon entrance. As Byron stopped speaking, Cael asked him if there were any quests that he should prepare for in advance, such as by saving up items that a later quest would ask for.

Byron began listing off a few quests that could be prepared for, including one in a somewhat distant town where the required item could be purchased in Kruxol. BlackSeed began leafing through his inventory, to see what items he should hold onto. However, the group were interrupted by the loud sound of explosions across the walls of the marketplace, throwing them into the air. Cael was thrown hurtling forwards, but felt someone use a soft [Mana Push] to keep him suspended in the air. He felt as if his body was being torn in two, and his skin seemed to be on the edge of tearing. Frantically looking around, he caught a glimpse of someone with a dagger using an uppercut to lift Audet and following it up by stabbing her in the heart until she died, before Cael himself felt a sharp dagger stabbing into his back and saw a black-masked Assassin standing beside his body who had seemingly emerged from a wall. Cael remained suspended in the air, feeling as though his spine was tearing itself apart and dropping away, letting out a loud scream.

The game's protection against pain from combat and bombs had seemingly become less secure. Cael's scream faded as he died.