Redeemer of the Dead, Book 2

Ingles Canyon Dungeon – John’s first cleared dungeon where he fights a number of Kongorad and T’kichik creatures.

Congratulations! Dungeon Cleared. +5,000 XP. First Clear Bonus. Having cleared the dungeon for the first time, you have been rewarded an additional +5,000XP +1,000 Credits. Bonus for being the first explorer +5,000 XP +5,000 Credits. Ingles Canyon Dungeon classified as Level 20+ and above

Office Building Dungeon – This dungeon is filled with Golems: Humanoid, bipedal constructs that totter forward, raining energy beams and fire, occasionally interspersing the attacks with more exotic weaponry like sonic grenades or ice darts.

Underwater Dungeon – Capstan  leads John to a Level 20 dungeon they discovered recently at Miles Canyon. Looking down into the Yukon River, there is a new whirlpool there that requires jumping into from the canyon’s edge in order to enter. John at first refuses to do it, but Ali goads him into it, making him angry enough to forget his fear. A childhood memory of not being able to swim in the deep end of a pool is the source of John’s fear of water.

The underwater dungeon proves to be an experience John doesn’t want to talk about. His lightning spell is quite effective at clearing hostiles in the water, but it also singes himself and his friends in the process, something they yell at him for.

This Dungeon contains Mermen

Unnamed Dungeon – John goes with Capstan and the Yerick group again to another dungeon after the Underwater Dungeon, this one proving much easier. So much so that he and Capstan are able to have a casual conversation.

Goblin Dungeon – John goes out dungeon raiding with Richard, Mikito, Aiden, and Amelia. They encounter a swarm of Goblins (Ali’s name for them), and the group debates the ethics of killing them since they are semi-sentient and have a town structure set up with buildings. John convinces them to let him try talking to them first.

Dungeon Located! Warning! The current dungeon has not been categorized at this time due to System limitations. All XP rewards are doubled. Successful completion of the dungeon by a System-registered individual will generate additional rewards.

John only gets to say two words before they begin attacking, which decides the morality issue for them. Aiden casts Guardian’s Embrace, a shield spell that won’t last long but will protect from anything except a Dragon’s breath. The group manages to kill fifty Goblins before they retreat back into the dungeon, at which point they realize there are way more of them than they initially thought. After doing the math they realize about three hundred have spawned in the last week and if left unchecked, they will quickly get into the thousands. The group decides to finish it. It is a gory, gruesome battle that leaves their consciences scarred, but they sweep the dungeon, then use explosives to collapse all the warrens and leave a giant crater in the ground.

Unnamed Dungeon #2 – John, Mikito, Richard, Aiden, and Amelia go raid an easier dungeon after giving up on the Frakin Dungeon (Two-Horn Mountain Dungeon).

Two-Horn Mountain Dungeon – At first, John, Mikito, Richard, Aiden, and Amelia attempt to clear this dungeon which is infested with Frakin. After nearly dying, they give up to go clear an easier dungeon.

On the second try, John gathers some of the Yerick. Capstan, Nelia, Tahar, Richard, Mikito, Aron, Rachel, Aiden, and Amelia all go in together.

It’s entrance is a limestone cave, 20 by 30 ft., with small stalagmites and stalactites.

They enter the first cavern, then set a drone near an unexplored entrances on the side to act as an alarm in case they get flanked.

They then issue drones out to various points in the other corridor that are modified firefighting drones, which spew acid on command. Ali goes ahead and scouts. Aiden raises an Earth wall to block off an entrance, and then the Frakin begin to storm. At Ali’s command, the drones are triggered and release their acid on the Frakin, who are clustered together, the narrow corridor nullifying the advantage from their superior numbers. As the swarm nears, Aiden and Rachel put up a wall of Earth and a wall of Ice respectively to cut off the front of the swarm from the rest. Then they charge. They are mostly successful with this first phase. Eventually, one of the Frakin breaks through the walls and they prepare for round two. A half hour later, they are forced to retreat back to the first cavern, but only because the Frakin corpses are a space hindrance in the narrow corridor. Eventually they move further into the dungeon, mapping as they go with drones. Capstan chooses the middle out of three tunnels to explore next because it is bigger than the rest and he fits better.

They find a swarm of 63 Frakin who are different than the rest: their names glow red which means they are incendiary and they are calm, not rushing the adventurers. John and his team conclude that they are smarter than the rest, and that the group is being flanked. John orders Capstan to take the others and get out while he offers himself as a sacrifice to buy them time.

He unloads his missile launcher at the Frakin. They return fire with plasma bolts. Then he uses Inlin, firing armor-piercing bullets for five minutes until he runs out. Next he uses lightning. He continues in this manner until he mana is down fifteen percent. He then makes it to the cavern where the rest of the party has set up Chaos Mines. Ali warns him that the others are trapped in a bottle neck unable to get out of the dungeon. The mines go off and open a portal: pink and yellow tentacles come out and gobble up the Frakin. John gets a notification that he has reached Level 30, and he immediately applies his new points to his Class Skill.

John uses Soul Shield to buy time for both the party and himself as he attacks the Frakin. Just as it’s about to fail, Ali instructs him to Blink Step around corner. Ali then tells him to use Sticky Grenades. Then Polar Zone, which causes the sticky grenades’ substance to freeze and harden, and making the Frakin’s carapaces go through rapid temperature change, hot to cold, and then shatter. He continues to follow Ali’s commands, releasing his final payload of missiles, then resorts to his sword as the first Frakin come around the corner. He looses his left arm to a slow dodge, but eventually triggers the QSM and uses it to walk out of the dungeon.

The rest of the group is incredibly injured to various degrees, many limbs missing. Tahar has perished.

Upon doing an autopsy on the body of one of the Frakin, John and Ali discover that the Frakin in the dungeon are infested with Onlivik spores.

Quest Received—The Onlivik Spores (Shareable). Destroy the Onlivik Spores that have infected the Frakin in the Two-Horn Mountain Dungeon. Rewards: 50,000 Credits, 20,000 XP.

John explains this to Lana, who flirts with Leonard to get him to create a virus that will infect the Frakin. John then purchases Dragonfly drones that can fly in and release the virus to the Frakin. He then reports his findings to the council to rally as many people as they can to attack in ten days when the virus should be in full effect.

Everyone gathers at the Two-Horn Mountain Dungeon to ready themselves, and they are joined by the Hakarta, in fact more Hakarta than John originally bartered for. Labashi explains his employer has a vested interest in defeating this dungeon, so he has figured out a way to get paid twice for this job. Aiden and Rachel have joined them after all, as well as Jim’s hunting parties. Gadsby has stayed behind in Carcross, elected to defend the town while everyone else is away.

 

The first eight and a half hours is dull, as the group must move slowly to investigate all branching tunnels to make sure they aren’t flanked. They finally find some Frakin, infected, in a side cavern, but it’s not so many that one group can’t deal with them. These Frakin do not throw plasma like the others did but instead emit gaseous clouds that eat away at armor. They are swiftly destroyed. Capstan decides it’s time for dinner and everyone settles in to prepare food and eventually sleep in shifts.

On day 2 of the dungeon run, the group finally encounters the Frakin, and it appears as if the virus is working. The first wave is mowed down by Bill, John, and the others’ projectile weaponry. Vir commands them to stop shooting and to instead hit the second wave with ice spells.Then Vir commands fire spells and the Mages comply. Next come the plasma-shooting Frakin, but even these are dealt with fairly easily by the group. Meanwhile, Mikito, Richard, and Lana’s group are dealing with their own battle, but seem to be holding their own.

Somehow, the Frakin manage to flank them again despite all their careful checking of passageways. Some of the group is sent to deal with the Frakin coming from behind.

On the front-line, the Frakin begin firing purple globule sacs which break open to release a gaseous poison-acid combo. The humans draw gas masks from their inventories, the Hakarta are safe inside their suits, and the Yerick just push through it until it begins to bother their exposed hides. In addition to this surprise, silver-steeled Behemoth Frakin emerge, which appear tougher to take down. The Mages raise rock spears to pierce them which slows their approach.

Hours of fighting later and the group begins to run out of ammunition despite taking breaks (provided by Mage attacks) from projectile weapons.

Capstan and Vir discuss moving to Plan F (F for Final Run, a hail mary scheme), which will mean John, Vir,  and Bill’s shadowy Asassin/Rogue friend surging past the incoming Frakin, (as they all have a way of moving through them, John using his QSM) leaving them for the rest of the group to deal with, and trying to find and take down the boss.

John encounters a Titanic Frakin, which he manages to surprise, rip open enough to shove a grenade inside, then move away from. It blows up, hindering the Frakin around it with its large corpse. There are three more Titanic Frakin behind it, but John determines he doesn’t have time to deal with them. Four minutes into using up his 5-minute QSM time, John finally comes to the end of the Frakin swarm.

John comes across three guard Frakin which he uses his sword on. He sends Ali to try to find Vir and Bill’s shadow friend to lead them back to where he is, becaue he’s pretty sure it’s where the boss is. Upon entering the next cavern, John sees that the Frakin held back a couple dozen from the rest of the battle, and they knew he was coming. He lobs grenades into them and finishes them off with his sword. Only one corridor leads away from that cavern, leading to the Boss: reddish brown, eight legs, a double pair of pincers that fit over its bulbous body, three stingers, and lots of teeth. Inside the Boss cavern, there is another exit/entrance than the one John is approaching from.

Surrounding the Boss Frakin are a handful of smaller Frakin, all different variations. John takes five minutes to plan, then sets up Claymores and guns to fire down from the ledge he’s on, hoping to split their forces so he doesn’t have to fight all of them at once.

The guns draw the Frakin to him, about half that were guarding the Boss. John hits them with a Polar Wind spell which freezes the front ones in place and bunches the group up. Then he triggers the Claymores. Only some of them go off, however, the others damaged by the sudden cold. Then John starts making his way forward, slashing through them.

John labels these as Frakin Champions. After getting through them, John is limping and Sabre is down to 82% integrity.

As John approaches the Boss, it lets loose a blast from its stinger which sends him flying back into the corridor. John gets up, takes a running leap, and uses Blink Step. While he’s blinking towards the Boss, he launches his first pair of missiles into the gathered Frakin. As he lands, he casts Polar Wind with one hand and grabs smoke grenades from his inventory with the other.

He tags enemies as he dances around them, then pulls out high-tech white phosphorous grenades: self-propelled, these grenades split in the air, each separate portion able to track their pre-selected targets, then attach and ignite the phosphorus, directing the burning substance into the creatures at 2,760 C (half the surface temperature of the sun). 

John then begins to damage the Boss, aiming for a spot where its heart is, hoping he can get enough damage through to hurt it.

John gets caught by the Boss’ pinchers, then slammed with another in the shoulder, sending him hurtling away. It’s only the effect of the virus that causes the Boss to miss its next strike. John realizes he cannot defeat this creature on his own, but he doesn’t have a choice. He prepares everything he has and is about to make his last effort when Ali tells him to keep it busy for just a moment longer.

Triggering Blink Step several times, but depleting his Mana, John jumps around and slashes more into the Frakin. John distracts the Boss with another set of missiles launched into its side and it reacts in anger by bearing down a pincher on him. He takes the blow with his sword, bearing up under it. The Boss withdraws its pincher, taking the sword with it, and prepares to blast with its stinger, when someone else attacks with red light, tearing off a stinger and two legs, leaving part of the Boss’ body exposed. The one-time blast came from Vir, and the monsters direct their attacks at him, giving John a chance to catch a breath and think through how to end the fight. Ali confirms for him that Shadow-girl is nowhere to be found. John spends a few minutes running around the cavern, collecting bodies and stones into his Altered Space inventory.

John calls out to the Boss to get its attention, then uses Blink Step to get in close to it where its pinchers can’t reach him. He then launches himself into its open maw and allows the creature to eat him, Soul Shield turned on. Inside, he launches sticky grenades down its throat and unloads everything from his inventory, even his supplies and food. He then does as much damage as he can to its throat while it gags and tries to dislodge him. John’s Soul Shield blinks out and he doesn’t have enough Mana to cast another. He triggers the QSM and exits the monster, coming back into his plane of existence just as the Boss is going through death throws, one of which catches him and knocks him out.

John wakes to Shadow-girl tending to him, and without Sabre. The mecha is torn apart, having ejected him when it ran out of Mana battery. The Boss voided its bowels in a smelly, yellow-pink mixture and without Sabre to filter out the smells, John vomits. He allows himself five minutes to heal while Vir recovers as well and Shadow-girl takes care of a straggling Frakin, and reads his System notifications. He has leveled up to Level 34.

Congratulations! Dungeon Cleared. +10,000 XP. First Clear Bonus. Having cleared the dungeon for the first time, you have been rewarded an additional +5,000XP +1,000 Credits. Bonus for being the first explorer +5,000 XP +5,000 Credits.

Two-Horn Mountain Dungeon classified as Level 50+ and above. System Quest Complete (Onlivik Spores). Destroy the Onlivik Spores that have infected the Frakin in the Two-Horn Mountain Dungeon. Rewards (shared): 50,000 Credits, 20,000 XP.