Corvid Ambuscade [P1]- New Order
Greater London, United Kingdom
Highrise Apartment Block, City of London:
There is a common belief in the world that life in the military is the most traumatising experience one can have in times of war and active conflict, the opposite was true for Sergeant Bjorn Sanders of the Britannia Peace Corp. The man completed the log out procedure from the game he was posted to and had to wait a few moments before his capsule opened feeling a weird shock pass through his body before it opened up. He sat up with an annoyed groan as his eyes stopped fogging over and his vision refocused. He looked around at the flat hee rented for the mission with an unimpressed look thinking that only the phrase 'Humble beginnings' could properly describe this place. And it was for a mission sponsored by the alleged self-made man who is also apparently a cheapskate.
He stepped out of his pod onto the tiled floor around it reaching for a towel to wipe his hands, he reached for a phone on the desk not to far from the pod in question. "That fucking cripple really let some fake power get to his head Huh... That's last damn time he pushes me around, Seems like I need to call in a favour from a friend", Bjorn muttered under his breath as a sadistic smile creeped onto his face, "Rest well in that fucking fantasy world of yours Sanders... You will never wake up from it again", He said to himself as the smile pulling at his lips made the quiver slightly.
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As Merlin begrudgingly left for the Iron Bastion sell some materials for the Party, the rest of them watched the conversation between Soldier and Darius from a distance wondering what it was all about, they couldn't make out much from body language and they couldn't see either of their lips to even attempt to read them so they could only theorise on what they could be talking about as they let Daiya Heal them up and restore her mana at intervals. In the end almost 10 minutes passed before the nodded at one another and returned to the party with their news.
"I will start... To make a short story shorter we will switch from a group commission of 60% for our party to an individual commission of 10% for every party member except him", Soldier explained gesturing to Darius, "As the sole Powerhouse of the group with 3 of the 'Fangs of Basilisk' mastered he brings more to the party individually than arguably all of us combined, As such he will keep a 20% share of drops, and maintain his status as leader of the party on an indefinite basis... He alone will get first pick priority on drops and items with the rest being distributed on a performance based metric", Soldier wrapped up before stepping back and letting Darius take the stage.
"I understand that as things stand many of you may be chagrained by my approach to leading this party... Some may outright disagree with my methods", Darius paused as he let the weight of his acknowledgement sink in, maybe even inspire a little hope. "And I could not care less... This isn't a group of a friends following a trusted friend amongst the group out on some adventure, this is professional", Darius continued, "More than Half of you are here under commission, while the other half of you know why you can't afford to slow us down over petty gripes... None of you are owed my respect and I won't act like that isn't case, you are all a convenience for my goals and I will treat you as such", Darius added with a raised tone but not a rushed one, he made sure he spoke clearly and concisely so no mistake could be made.
"If you don't plan to accept that then leave the party right now, Otherwise stow the bullshit and do your jobs... Am I clear?!", Darius demanded with a boom in his voice that even he wasn't expecting, nor complaining about. Queen and Lancer nodded silently with focused looks on their faces getting nods from Darius in return. The members of Soldiers party looked skeptical mostly but complied out of trust for Soldiers judgement, as far they could tell Darius had made solid decisions in combat so far and had the individual talent to back up his demands so they had no more reason to bite back beyond not liking him as a person. But liking him and earning were two different things.
Seeing the party agreeing with him, excitedly or not, Darius finally turned to the new comers, "First order of business, the new comers are way to under levelled to keep up with the rest of group and keep the formation fluid so spend the rest of your time power levelling to Level 4, Merlin will do the same as she goes back to The Bastion to convert our materials into wealth, this money will be the first thing that is divided according to the new system of distribution", Darius announced before turning to Soldier and the rest of his unit.
"The rest of you are to scout ahead for what mobs in this new zone are like and report back here in two hours. A map is ideal but not necessary", Darius concluded his orders before staring at something. "I have to deal with something offline for a moment so expect me back in an hour at the latest", Darius said as he stared off at something, beginning the log out procedure, his avatar began to liquify and evaporate on the spot as Darius felt his consciousness slowly fade. Darius felt a unique shock pass through his body as he opened his eyes to find the doors to his capsule still shut with red lights flashing on the inside.
Through the liquid filled insides he could barely hear his house alarms blaring, but of all of the problems with his current situation, the worst of them by far were the two bullet marks in the glass of his capsule. Had he not requested them be repurposed to be bullet proof there was every chance he would have died today, and worst part was he knew exactly who would pull some nonesense like this. Darius pushed down on the emergency released from within the pod as the liquid he was submerged in flushed out to the storage tank at the base of the pod and the doors silently opened.
Taking a moment to process the sudden change in lighting, Darius sat up and stretched his body a for the first time in possibly 8 hours. He looked around his house once more and found that his assailants had left but most of his belongings where either taken or destroyed, anything that couldn't fit in a bag was gone except his duty phone for some reason. He knew he left his personal and work essentials at the office last time so he wasn't too worried, but this was meant to be a message, and it's about time he sent one back to his former fellow Cadet.
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ID: Miss Ambrosius Age: 29 Race: Human Class: None Subclass: None Rank: 0 Lvl: 3 Exp: 319/400 Titles: Adventurer. Status: Normal. Items: Sphere of Appraisal, Magic Apprentice Set & Combat Robe. HP: 49/80 MP: 07/65 [22/80] Sta: 24/65 [39/80] Atk: 20 M.atk: 85 [100] (+17) Def: 20 M.def: 85(+17) Str: 10 Spd: 10 Agi: 10(+10) Int: 55(+15) End: 10 Luck: 10(+5) Stp: 0 Skp: 50
Race Skills: None
General Skills: Soul of Magic, Basic Mana Manipulation, Mana Reinforcement, Mana Bullet & Basic Energy Conversion.
Subclass Skills: None
Trade Skills: None
Item Skills: Appraisal
Resistances: None
Special effects: +10% Mana Recovery & stamina recovery.
Merlin took a little over half an hour to get back to the Iron Bastion since she wasn't familiar enough with the monsters in the region to try and get to a different fortress. She started off going over the party Inventory once more to see what was being sold and how much of it they had; From what Merlin could see the party had 1 Dire Horn worth 5 silver, 2 Dire Fangs worth 2 silver each, 10 Dire Chips worth 50 bronze each, 1 dire crown worth 10 silver, 210 lesser dire horns worth 10 bronze each, 420 dire fangs worth 5 bronze each, and 2,100 dire chips worth 2 bronze each.
Merlin checked to see that Darius' earlier assumption was wrong, not that knew that fact, but The Dire wolf Wild Boss wasn't worth 35 Silver but 50 silver due to the value it's materials bring in crafting weapons for the higher ranking knights of the Bastion. Even the less prestigious Lesser Dire Wolves could get you 15 Bronze a head in this region so it was not a wonder that it was a region that was as lucrative as it was dangerous. In total just off of the bounty alone the group was set to make 3 Gold and 50 Silver, the sales of raw materials was bound to get them 8 Gold and 64 Silver coming up to a total of 12 Gold 14 Silver for a Party of 9.
The way Merlin saw things the money they earned from this sale alone was enough to run a decent upstart guild with as much as 100 members much less a 10th of that number of people, at this point she was fine taking the original 60% for her party, bringing in new members until they were about 20 or 25 and starting a guild with their share of the funds. Most big guilds were still out mapping regions and finding resources, meanwhile their group had raked in a lewd amount of early game wealth.
Realising the implications of this though, Merlin began to wonder what on earth was so important about some random Bandit group that would make a member of Ethereum like Darius ignore the potential foundation for his guild to hunt them down. The worst possible case scenario is that they eventually have to take the mission on as part of some event quest, it's not like the damn Mobs were getting any stronger.
Regardless of the why though, all Merlin needed to do now was make sure her party retained enough wealth at the end of this to stick to her upstart plan after the renegotiations. Not having anything better to do, and refusing to screw her people over more by splurging on potions to recover her health and mana, Merlin found her way to the nearest tavern to enjoy the passive Health and Mana recovery buff it provided while within the buildings and decided to log out to stretch her real body out.
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Darius wrapped his stumps in their heavily padded socks and strolled over to the bathroom, not bothering to put his prosthetics on. The fantasy that game provided was nice and all, but he refused to let himself getting sucked into such a place and forget about his situation in real life. In the game he was a the powerful Basilisk who's whims could make or break a person's career, In real life his life isn't nearly so glamourous or under control.
The very fact that he is getting involved in this game in the first place is a testament to the fact that he is not entirely in control of his own life and he was getting sick of it, he has lost more than enough by now and needed to make some kind of effort to cut ties for good. Especially if he's going to be hit with nonesense like this attack after being forced to give his help and expertise in the field of full dive gaming.
Darius Reached for his duty line and opened it up to see a message from [5up3r D0uch3]. There was nothing but a Video file attached with a bunch of white flags under it with a message telling Darius that the there was something wrong with the Full Dive Pods that they were being put in and that they were going to need to cease-fire between them and actually prioritise the mission this time.
Darius got a bad feeling about what he was about to see, because there were very few things in the world that could make Bjorn Sanders go out of his way to deescalate a fight, especially if it was to work together with someone on something. With a mind set change from generally cautious to somewhat serious now, Darius opened the video file Bjorn sent him and immediately understood that why all of this had been a mistake.
The video showed the guys that Bjorn sent breaking into Darius' home like planned and messing the house up as planned, breaking some things, and taking some others; the problem came when they got Darius' pod, the pod that allowed him access to the 'game'. The goon struck the side of the pod with his gun and even fired on the glass laughing at how it was bullet proof anyway so nothing would actually happen clearly not caring if something did happen. The goon made some comment about Darius not being home at the moment and turned to leave, but that was the problem, Darius was home and he was in the pod when the goons came over.
Darius scanned the video again and caught the time on his wall clock in the background showing that they were here literally a half hour before this, But they were right. When the camera was placed against the glass on his pod before they fired on it, the Pod was still there, but Darius' very unconscious and heavily sedated body was nowhere to be found.