Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1 (29 page)

“Well about time. The treasure map sounds cool, but it doesn’t beat not having to watch Naugha fall down repeatedly!” Jason said.

“Hell yeah!” Wayne yelled out in agreement.

Despite the necklace being tradeable, there was no way we weren’t going to give this to Wayne. Jason was right, there were far too many instances where we watched Wayne fall on his butt at night or in the dark dungeons. I looted the Treasure Map and Wayne grabbed the necklace.

“We are still early in the day guys so I am going to activate this Treasure Map unless you would rather just stay out here and kill more wolves.”

“Screw that noise. Hit it Alex!” Dan said.

As soon as I highlighted the map in my inventory by focusing on it, and blinking to activate it, a spot popped up on my map. It looked to be about a thirty-minute trek from our current location. “Do you guys see the location on your maps as well?” I asked.

“Yup, we got it Alex. Doesn’t look too far at all. I say we head over now.” Jason said.

All were in agreement and we made our way toward the location on the map.

We had to stop twice to kill some wandering mobs that were in our way, but otherwise it was an uneventful trip. Just before we arrived at the location indicated by our maps, we stepped out of the forest and into a clearing. And before us was a no-shit castle. And there were definitely people home.

CHAPTER 17

I started walking toward the castle but Dan stopped me with a hand on my forearm. I looked over at him and he shook his head and then nodded toward the castle walls. “Those are archers up there brother. We won’t get far in this clearing if we try to walk across.”

I didn’t have Dan’s eyesight but I believed him. Jason and Wayne started looking around for another way to get closer, as had I, but I didn’t see anything obvious. I had a plan, but I knew it was going to be met by a series of groans.

“Before you all start bitching, and groaning, and complaining, understand that what I say next is going to happen, so maybe just nod your heads now so I can get to it.”

They all knew what I was going to do, but they still let out a collective sigh. Ungrateful bastards.

I decided I wanted the best protection I could possibly get, so I walked back into the forest where there were many shadows, and kneeled on the pine needle floor. Within a couple of seconds, I shrouded myself in shadows just as Stan had instructed, and I was ready to move out. Despite the sun being overhead, and not a cloud in the sky, the world looked a whole lot darker from within my shadows.

I told the guys I was heading in, and they all waved goodbye, although in three separate directions since none of them could actually see me. Because of my bonuses to Conceal and Stealth I was moving at almost normal speed, and my trip across the open clearing went quickly. Thankfully the front gate was open so I did not have to find an alternate means for entering the castle. I entered the castle yard, but didn’t see anyone inside. Since I knew there were people along the walls, I decided to make my way up to the parapets.

Once I was on top of the wall I was able to get a closer look at the archers and select them as targets. Before I even selected the first one, however, I knew this guy wasn’t going to be a part of the living based on the white jaw bone I could see sticking out from beyond his chin. Marking him as a target only confirmed as such, with his name appearing as An Undead Archer, who was Blue to me.

I continued around the top of the wall and counted eight archers total. Four on the North front side of the castle, two on each side of the gate, and two more on the smaller East and West sides of the castle. The outer wall did not continue to cover the south side as the outer wall of the Manor climbed above the wall itself and would have been impossible to get over. I intended to inspect the outside of the southern portion, to look for a possible entry way for my group, but first I linked the mob to my group.

“Oh hell yes! I have been waiting to use this spell!” Jason yelled out as soon as he saw the mob’s identification. I remembered back when we were coming up with our characters that Jason wanted to be able to go out killing undead at some point. This was going to be his first chance.

“I’m going to scout some more guys. The front gate may be open, but I don’t think we could take eight archers lighting into us all at one time. The wall doesn’t go around the southern side since the manor house’s outer wall makes up that portion. We couldn’t possibly scale that anyhow, but maybe there is another way in,” I told the group.

They all murmured their understanding and agreement and I headed back out to investigate the manor’s outer wall. I turned the corner and was immediately disappointed.

That’s all it was. A wall. No windows, no vents near the bottom, no flag poles, just a four story sheer wall. And there was nothing I, or my teammates, were going to be able to do to get through that wall.

As I looked around some more I noticed a slight difference in the ground around me. It was subtle, but definitely there. A portion of the grass seemed to be a little more robust in the clearing than the surrounding vegetation. And it appeared to go in a straight line from the manor wall to the tree line of the forest. I had my suspicions, but I called the guys together in that area of the forest to huddle up.

Once they arrived I showed them what I had seen, and Dan immediately saw what I meant and seemed to catch on to what I suspected. “According to my map Alex, there is a water source south of us. Same direction as the line.”

Wayne looked at the wall, the ground, the forest, back to the wall, and then groaned loudly. “Seriously, the old going through the sewers trick?”

“It is a time tested tactic my large friend. And speaking of which, let’s hope it’s accessible to us two legged type. Although Wayne you may have to hands and knees it anyhow.”

Wayne did not look happy, and Jason even less so. But we headed to the water Dan had seen on his map. The going was quick as there was a bit of a slope down ward as we headed away from the castle. After 15 minutes we arrived at the water Dan saw on his map, which turned out to be a lake and not a river.

But there was no sewer grate, or overflow. I had been mistaken in my estimation. What there was, instead, was a cave entrance big enough to sail a small boat inside. And like the castle, this entrance was guarded. Only this time they weren’t archers, but sentries. The Undead Guards were also Blue to me.

“Now this is something I can get behind. No little baby sewers for Naugha, no sir. I can walk through that entrance no problem.”

“Well I suggest we see what is on the other side of that cave’s mouth then. Dan, grab em and bring em here. I don’t want to take the chance that there are more inside the cave. I mean I could Stealth my way over there and look, but I think you guys are done waiting for action.”

“Amen to that brother. I am grabbing them now. And Naugha, don’t be a dick with the battle cries. They hurt my feelings.”

As Dan headed off, I looked over to Jason, who was itching to cast some damage. “When it hits 50 percent Allister, hit it with the fury. I have a feeling it is going to do some damage and I don’t want Wayne to lose aggro.” Jason nodded his head in agreement, but I could tell he didn’t want to wait that long.

Dan quickly arrived with the two mobs and we fell into our normal routine of Wayne getting aggro on both before we began lighting into the mobs. As the first mob approached the 50 percent mark Jason asked, “Now Alex?”

“Now Allister!”

And with that, Jason got to cast his Banish Undead spell for the first time. And thank goodness he waited until the mob was at 50 percent health. Because it went from 50 to 15, in one shot! We finished off the first one quickly, and started in on the second. Jason again was ready with the undead damage spell and blasted the mob with a similar effect.

“I do believe we have a new hitter in the group lads! Allister just decimated those mobs!” Wayne yelled out while giving Jason a high five.

“I’m not going to lie to you guys. I love being the healer for our group. But sometimes it just feels good to put the beat down on something,” Jason said while smiling broadly.

I looted the two mobs and was happy to find that they were stacked with cash. Each one had close to a gold piece. Neither of them had any items to loot though.

“Well that was terribly uneventful, but we got some decent cash out of them. So let’s go see what is inside that cave boys,” I said while making my way over to the cave entrance.

“Let me scout first, just to make sure there aren’t like 50 mobs waiting around the corner,” I said while activating my Conceal/Stealth.

I didn’t expect to find a room full of mobs, and thankfully I was right. Instead there was a small dock with a couple of row boats tied to the end, and a couple of more guards next to the dock. I ventured further in and found patrols of two guards moving through the tunnels of the cave. They didn’t overlap, except through line of sight, and they moved slower than you would expect most guards to move around. I guessed this was largely in part due to their undead status. Shambling zombies and all that.

This definitely looked doable for our group, and I relayed the information to the guys. I told them to wait by the entrance of the cave, and I would tell Dan when to pull the two by the dock. Once I was sure the first roving patrol was farthest away from the stationary dock guards, I told Dan to engage. After firing off an arrow, Dan pulled the mobs to the entrance of the cave where Wayne began his Tanking duties. By the time I got back to them, the first mob was down and they were working on the second one. Jason’s blasts were obviously doing some serious damage.

“Those spells hurting your mana Allister?” I asked.

“Not even close Alex. They cost just a little bit more than my strongest heal. So I am actually saving mana by casting them and making it so Naugha doesn’t have to fight so long.”

We rarely had to sit and let Jason regenerate his mana, as he had plenty of time between heals on Wayne. But we would be able to move even faster now that Jason could do so much damage. Jenny would likely be able to put a serious hurting on these mobs as well being a Paladin. I said as much to our group.

“I’ll never admit this openly, but with a spell like that, I wouldn’t be able to take aggro from her at all against mobs like these. Even with my better weapon, gear, and stats. I’m just happy Allister hasn’t pulled it from me. These guys do pack a solid punch, and I don’t think Allister would be able to get another hit off.”

I looted the two corpses and found good cash on them again, but still no items. Even if we didn’t find any items on the undead mobs, the money was definitely worth the effort.

I thought about how we would move through the cave complex quickly. I didn’t want to pull four mobs, which could happen if we pulled at the wrong time of a patrol. But I also needed to be there for the loot. I suggested that I stay out to watch the patrols and tell Dan when to pull. When he did I would run in and loot the last mobs that had been killed, and then immediately run back out to track the patrols. This seemed to work for everyone.

And work well it did. Over the next hour we cleared out the entire cave, going through 24 mobs in total, pulled in twos. At no point was there danger of anyone dying. We had become a solid team for sure. The last two mobs we killed, the guards for a solid looking oak door, went down just as easy, but actually did have an item to loot. The keys for said door.

So with that, we unlocked the door, and I made my way up the stairs using my Blacksuit. I came out into an opulent bedroom. However, I didn’t come in through a door, but a book case. It appears the cave exit was a secret escape for whoever lived here previously. The bedroom didn’t give me any indication as to who that might be, as the room was vacant. Seeing it to be mildly safe, I told the guys to join me in the bedroom.

I remembered thinking that I wanted some variety in the game play, as I hoped that it wouldn’t just be dungeon after dungeon, so I was excited by this idea of fighting in a castle. We would need to go through and clear all the rooms on our way to wherever we were going in order to find the treasure. I told the guys my thoughts and they were in agreement. This time there was a map of the castle, but I was inclined to use Dan’s brain still to track where we had and had not gone.

“Dan, you are up buddy. Use that noggin of yours to find us the quickest route to clear this floor of the castle,” I told Dan.

“Alex, can you do your thing and scout out the hallways first, I don’t want to run into a bunch of mobs coming around a corner,” Dan said.

I was happy that the guys were realizing the value of my skill finally, and I quickly headed out into the halls with my Conceal/Stealth activated. There were roving patrols around the halls, but all of the doors to the bedrooms were closed. I realized we were on the bottom floor of the castle and that there was at least one more floor for us to go up to. The first floor seemed to take up the first two stories, and the second floor made up the third. I was guessing there must be some type of large room at the top of the castle, where we would fight the big boss.

We decided to take out the hallway patrols first, following the same tactics we used previously. Again, none of the guards had any items, but had decent money on themselves.

Once we took out the guards we started going room to room, and fighting any and all mobs that were in the bedrooms. Each hallway, of which there were three, had six rooms. We found three and two rooms occupied on the shorter hallways to the east and west, and four rooms occupied on the long southern hallway. The northern facing wall was a large entryway with a staircase running up to the second floor. There were no rooms in this area, but we did find four guards in that area, who did patrols. We took them out prior to hitting up the rooms.

Each mob in the rooms was a singleton, and they were all casters. They didn’t have a high armor class, nor a high Constitution, but they packed a wallop with their spells. Jason had buffed us against disease and poison, what we figured an undead caster might use, but they were still able to land some damage over time spells and strong direct damage spells. Wayne was taking the brunt of these, and could have been in some danger if it weren’t for Jason’s Banish Undead spell. It didn’t hit as hard as against the guards, as the casters likely had some resistance, but due to their limited hit points, it tended to do the same amount of damage. We were lucky again to have a Cleric in our group who was able to cast the Undead spell. Without that, our crawl through the castle would have taken much longer, with Jason needing to regenerate mana frequently for heals.