032 Waystones and Contracts

The trio slowly made their way into the main room. What lay before them was a grand door, it stood 4 meters tall and 3 meters wide. Its frame was made from colossal tree roots. The door itself was made from dark iron and was decorated with gold accents.

Looking around the room they found that it was large enough to easily house a few hundred people. Vines grew out of the roof above them, some were so long that they nearly touched the floor. It appeared as if the room was not visited in decades.

The walls had lit torches mounted equal distance away from one another. On either side of the large door were two large braziers roaring with fire.

Apart from the sound of themselves breathing all there was to listen to was the crackling of the fire around the room.

"It's kind of majestic, is it not?" Mercury praised the room.

"Yeah, almost breathtaking." James agreed.

Talon, on the other hand, was concerned. Purple miasma slowly leaked out from the bottom of the dungeon's door.

"Ah, guys! We might have a problem." Talon spoke out.

He had gotten the attention of both of them. They turned around and looked to where Talon was looking. They saw a thick purple mist spreading out from the door. It was as if it was protecting the door; it stopped once it had spread out a meter from the door.

Mercury was grossed out, "It smells like almonds and decay. (things with almond smells, which don't come directly from almonds themselves, usually turn out to be poisonous)."

James activated his Magical Eyes and looked at the door. He could see a large amount of mana behind it. The miasma had a mana infused into it; it resembled the mana from behind the door.

He turned towards Mercury and Talon and had a look of worry in his eyes. He did notice something as he turned around but chose to talk to his friends before looking further into it.

"The other side of the door is flooded with mana, the mist in front of the door shares the same signature." James had voiced his concerns.

Talon and Mercury looked at each other then back to James. They understood James's concerns. "What do we do? We were given permission to enter the dungeon if we felt like we could handle it.It would be a huge chance for us." Talon wanted to capitalize on the chance to be the first to enter a dungeon.

Mercury and Talon started to discuss the situation but James had blocked them out. He had his full attention on the west wall of the room. It was covered in a flickering light of mana. Almost as if it didn't exist.

He approached the wall slowly and cautiously. The more examined it the more safe he felt. There were no signs of traps or misplay. Finally, he reached out to touch the wall.

* Whoosh *

He fell right through the wall, it was as if it was made from air. He caught himself before he fully fell to the ground and looked behind him. The wall he passed through looked like a body of grey mist.

He tried to yell out for his friends but they did not seem to hear him. Both Talon and Mercury noticed that James was not joining in on their discussion; they finally noticed he was missing.

"Where did he go?" Talon was lost.

"I had sight of the exit, I know he didn't leave." Mercury was positive.

"I had sight of the dungeon door, he also did not enter it." Talon was sure he didn't leave via the dungeon.

They looked around the room and didn't see any trace of James. That was until he scared Mercury; she was searching the west side of the room. At the time she was walking next to the wall trying to see if there was anything they missed.

Right as she stepped in front of the false wall James popped his head out, "Miss me?" he said.

Mercury screamed out in fright and Talon came running with his bow drawn. Now they were both in front of the false wall. James reached out and grabbed their arms and pulled them through the misty wall.

Mercury was frustrated so he punched his arm, "What the hell! You scared the daylights out of me!"

Talon ignored the two and looked around the room, it was a decent sized room with a pedestal along its back wall. "Blaise, any clue what that might be?"

It was only now that James looked around the room, he quickly found what Talon was talking about. There was a small altar with a stone pedestal in its center. The top of the pedestal looked like a torch.

James didn't think much of it when he grabbed a nearby torch and put the flaming end in the top of the stone pedestal as if he was using a lighter to light a candle.

The pedestal's top spawned a deep blue flame and it spread down to the altar and lit more candles.

* Ding *

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Your party has activated a waystone! You may now travel to it once you find another waystone!

By default, it is linked to the waystone in Glish.

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Mercury jumped to hug James, "You did it! You found a way to get out of his damned cave and canyon!"

Talon was also excited but he didn't go as far as to hug James. He got a private message from another friend of his and started laughing.

Mercury was a little annoyed, "What is so funny, I thought you wanted to escape as well?"

Talon took a few seconds to wipe some tears out from the corner of his eyes. "This is hilarious!" He then shared a video with the two of them.

The video was a remix of the video of Rend and Tempest's guilds getting wiped out by the Centurion.

Even though the Centurion took less than a minute to kill everyone in the guild the video was just under 10 minutes long. It was a bunch of looping clips of Scarlet dying to the Centurion. It looped her death over and over through the video. Every single one of her deaths were dubbed with the Wilhelm scream (look it up, chances are you already heard it before!).

Mercury had actually fallen to the ground laughing, she was laughing so hard she was crying. "She will never live that down! Oh my god the creator is a genius!" It was getting hard for her to breathe.

James also laughed at her misfortune. "I am going to assume she will try to find the original poster and the person who remixed it. The remix alone has over 50m views."

He paused to finish laughing, "The top guilds, especially the two that got wiped will most likely rally together to fight the Centurion. They need to save their reputation and the PR that would come from the kill is just what they need."

Feeling the serious mood Mercury stopped laughing and asked James a question, "How long do you think it will take for them to be ready for the boss?"

This time it was Talon who made an observation, "Quite a while, they won't be able to rally their troops any time now. They will most likely also want to level up their main teams for a while before attempting. They won't want another leaked video of them wiping to a boss."

"I agree with Talon." James paused, "Now that we have a safe passage to the cave I think we should plant a Devil's Ivy seed."

"What if the top guilds finds the cave's entrance?" Mercury was concerned.

"That is what I'm worried about, we managed to fight the boss in a large open area thanks to the event moving it outside of the cave. I have a sneaking suspicion that without the event the Devil's Ivy was to actually be found and fought inside this save since we found the plant bed..

James took a pause to make sure they were following thus far, "The Ivy would be a great defense to the dungeon's entrance especially if they do need to fight it in that small space. It would slow them down greatly."

"If your logic is right, wouldn't that also mean that we would also have a hard time fighting the Ivy as well when we want to farm it?" questioned Mercury.

"Well, yes. However, unlike them, we know what to do." James comforted Mercury's worry.

Both Talon and Mercury were thinking over what James talked about. They found it sensical and eventually they both agreed to the idea.

"Okay, we will go plant one of our seeds." Mercury started walking down the tunnel to the plant bed.

Talon and James followed her lead. While they were walking James was in full thinking mode. Both Talon and Mercury noticed and kept quiet so that they would not distract him.

When they finally got to the plant bed Mercury had started to take out her seed but James got his out quicker and instantly planted it, "Why'd you do that?" Mercury was displeased.

"You are more likely to stay alive than myself. I am a spell caster so my health and defense is much lower than yours. If I die I may drop the seed." James explained his abrupt actions.

.

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Devil's Ivy Plant Bed

Time Left: 143:58:24

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"As long as they don't find their way in here in a few days time we should be safe." James proclaimed.

Mercury was anxious to get out of the cave, "Should we go back and use the waystone? It would be nice to get out of here in one piece."

James was also wanting to leave, he needed information. "We can, I want to see if I can find anything out about the miasma. Oh yeah, Reaper; don't do anything with that recipe and alchemy materials."

"Have you found a use for them?, asked Mercury. "It will cost you." she teased.

"Just a hunch, everything about this cave is somehow related. The seeds from the Ivy can be regrown here inside the cave. It also dropped the key that opened the silver chest as well as the ancient key that helps open the door to the City of Ruin. The recipe might have something to do with the dungeon in some way or another."

"I assume that neither of you have the alchemist profession?" probed Talon.

Both Mercury and James shook their heads, they didn't have the profession nor knew anyone who did.

Talon had to mull some things over before he gave them his opinion, [Would it really be beneficial to get him involved?], he thought to himself.

"I have some good and potentially bad news then, want to hear it?" Talon had made his decision.

James wanted to hear Talon out, "The good news first."

"Good news is that I know a talented alchemist; the bad news is that he doesn't come cheap. And I am not talking about how Mercury wants you to pay her. He will want money and/or material things."

Mercury wanted to enter the dungeon as soon as possible. "We are not short on money, what is his name and how fast can you get in contact with him?" she paused and looked at James with a mischievous smile. "I am positive that Blaise has enough money to cover any cost."

James saw that she was teasing him again and played along, "I'm not paying the full bill missy! You have money too! Besides, you seem to be the one who wants to enter the dungeon the most, you should front the bill!"

Talon was ignoring the two's flirting and was talking to the alchemist.

"His name is Totem and he agreed. There is a slight problem, he wants extra money so that he can buy his way out of a contract. He charges everyone for his services and he is currently with a big client." warned Talon.

"He is a merc?" questions Mercury.

Talon nodded his head, "Yup, currently he is helping Alexander and his guild to farm experience points. They are trying to beat you two on the leaderboards. Due to who his current client is, Totem is asking for 8 gold up front. Then the terms will be talking about when we meet up."

"Alexander? The leader of Solemn Sword?" Mercury wasn't worried. They already have a bad relationship with them anyway.

Talon wanted Blaise's permission to set up the meeting. "Yeah. Blaise, what are your thoughts?"

"Offer him 10 gold to sever the contract, tell him it is a good faith payment for him not to disclose his new employer.", James upped the down payment.

Talon spent a few minutes talking with Totem. It appeared to be going well. "He agreed, we are meeting in a private room in Bard's Tavern in two hours."

All three walked over to the waystone and used it to teleport back to Glish. They agreed to do some preparation for the meeting. They went their separate ways for the time being.

*** In the Field ***

Alexander noticed that Totem had stopped actively casting his spells and ordered his men to finish off the current pull and then wait.

"Totem, what is going on? We are only a few hours into the contract. This is unlike you."

"Oh, I am afraid I will be canceling the contract." Totem said with a stoic voice.

Alexander instantly frowned, "What is the meaning of this?!"

"Nothing too big. I was offered a large sum of money for another contract. They want it right now, I have a meeting in two hours to further talk about the conditions of the contract and its costs."

Alexander felt that he was walking over the dignity of his guild and broke his cool, "We paid you 5 gold coins for this contact! You can't break it now! What would your other customers think when they heard you went back on a contract!"

Totem didn't show a trace of worry, "They offered 10 gold coins for me to cancel this contract and then more after we discuss further terms. I would be a fool not to take this deal." He then took out 5 gold coins and handed them to Alexander. "Here is your reimbursement, have a good day."

Alexander ordered his men to stop Totem, in a very short period of time Totem was surrounded by 200 players.

"Alexander, do you want to provoke me? This is a single contract out of hundreds in the past that spanned many games that we played together." Totem was not impressed.

Alexander smirked, "It is a long walk back to Glish, I simply wanted to help a friend by getting you back to town faster."

[Earth Wall]

A 3 meter tall circular earthwall instantly appeared around Totem.

* Rumble *

The Earth Wall started to expand in size. It pushed everyone that it ran into out of its way.

Seeing that they were being attacked, the members of Solemn Sword retaliate. Dozens of spells and arrows were shot at the wall of earth; the wall had continued to expand without stopping.

Solemn Sword continued their attack on the wall, some players even lobbed their attacks over the top of the wall in hopes of directly attacking Totem.

Alexander was proud of his guild members. They thought on their toes and did not back down. They all knew that Totem, while not on the leaderboards, was one of the top Earth Mages in the game.

Alexander joined the attack on the wall. The wall started to expand slower and slower until it finally came to a stop. There were cracks forming on the surface of the wall. "Focus on the cracks, break down the wall then he will have nowhere to run!", he commanded.

* Boom *

The whole wall shattered into pieces, they finally destroyed the wall and nothing could stop them now!

They waited a minute for the dust and smoke to clear. Contrary to what they were expecting, there was no one behind the destroyed wall.

Alexander moved forward to examine the rubble. As he approached the spot that Totem was last he saw a human side hole in the ground. Totem had escaped underground.

He stomped on the ground in anger, "Damn him!" He then commanded his guild to go back to farming the monsters of the zone.

Before his guild could start their farming the ground started to shake, first it started slow and soft. It quickly built up and the ground started to collapse below his guild.

This was Totem's going away gift. Since they dared to threaten and attack him he wanted to leave with a grand exit.

The ground collapsed and every single member of Solemn Sword fell into a giant sinkhole. No one had died but it landed a critical blow to their morale.

"Totem, you better hope that I don't find you before I vent this frustration." Alexander mumbled under his breath.