Healer Book 4 -- Chapter 34

Chapter 34

It only took him a little over 6 minutes to fly all the way up to the north/northeast to where the dungeon he was looking for was located, though it took another minute of searching for the ring of dead trees mentioned in the file.  From the air, it looked a bit different from what he expected, as the trees were extremely tall, even taller than the ones in Darkwood Forest, though their trunks were fairly thin in comparison.  But their trunk size and the fact that they appeared dead weren’t the only difference.

They were bent over and pointed toward the central area of the ring, forming a giant dome made of dead branches with a scattered amount of brittle-looking brown leaves still attached to them.  Despite the trees being dead, it was difficult to see what was inside even from above, but he could make out the shape of what appeared to be a dilapidated shack a little bigger than a two outhouses stuck next to each other right in the very center of an empty clearing.

Touching down outside of the ring of trees, he exchanged his cloak for his Healthful Protection set cape, before running through the trees toward his destination.  Sadia appeared from her temporary home inside of his equipment, bounding alongside him, and within a minute he slid to a stop outside of the shack.  Thaden couldn’t help but notice that the wood that comprised the structure was cracked and missing pieces here and there, and a rust-red paint appeared to have graced its exterior at one point, but most of it appeared to have been peeled away at some point. 

The large door it possessed was hanging askew, barely connected to one of its hinges, and inside the doorway was the telltale sign of a dungeon entrance with its hazy appearance.

“Is this the right place?” he wondered aloud, as almost nothing about this environment felt like it would necessarily be the entrance to somewhere called “The Ghost Town”.

“According to the file, it should be; but I also agree, it looks strange.  Only one way to know, of course,” Sadia said, waving her paw toward the wavy distortion in the air.

Knowing that he was somewhat racing against the clock, Thaden stepped forward and passed through the dungeon entrance.    

Select your dungeon type:

Basic (Small Party 1<5)

Intermediate (Raid Party 6<200)

Hmm.  The information she gave me didn’t mention that this dungeon was for a Raid Party up to 200 people, did it?  No, I’m pretty sure she even said that only enough people to make it to 100 would meet me outside the city in 6 hours.

Regardless of the omitted information, as he thought it might simply be because she may have not known or thought it mattered, he selected the Intermediate type.

The Ghost Town Intermediate Raid Dungeon

Please select dungeon difficulty:

Minimal    Medial    Maximal

Dungeon Slayer World First Achievement override!

Please select dungeon difficulty:

Minimal    Medial    Maximal

You have entered The Ghost Town Intermediate Raid Dungeon (Minimal Difficulty)!

Crestline Gorge Intermediate Raid Dungeon

Current Difficulty: Minimal   Medial   Maximal

Maximum Raid Party Size: 200

Recommended Raid Party Levels: 220 - 230

As Thaden selected the Minimal difficulty of the dungeon and found himself standing next to Sadia in a square, stone-lined room lit by a sickly yellow, glowing metallic orb suspended from a chain hanging from the 40-foot-tall ceiling, he had to acknowledge that the rest of the information he had been given about this dungeon seemed accurate enough.  It was, indeed, called The Ghost Town dungeon and was for Levels 220 to 230, and the description of the entry area was also spot on.  Looking behind him, he saw a wavy rectangle against the back wall of the room, indicating the way out if he wanted to exit, while directly ahead of him was the entrance to a dimly lit tunnel about 10 feet wide, which disappeared into darkness within a hundred feet. 

Thaden, of course, had already refreshed all of his spells on his flight to the dungeon, as he didn’t want to waste any time when he got here, so he was as ready to go as possible.  Despite that, something about this dungeon didn’t seem right; whether it was the fact that its name didn’t really match what he was looking at, or because of lingering feelings of distrust toward the Guild Leader, he wasn’t positive, but it was nonetheless enough to make him hesitate for a few moments.

“Having second thoughts?” Sadia asked concernedly.

After a few seconds to evaluate his feelings, he shrugged.  “Not exactly.  Just being cautious, I guess.”  Rolling his shoulders and giving his hands a few shakes, as if to get out his nerves, he settled down and took his first stride forward.  “Alright, let’s go.”

The light from the stone entrance room only went so far down the hallway, which was illuminated by nothing except his own equipment, which was thankfully more than adequate to see where he was going.  His experience in the Descent into Darkness dungeon was enough to largely inure him to the dark, but thankfully this hallway wasn’t nearly as lacking in natural light as the previous one, especially at the end of the long hallway he was walking down, he could see what appeared to be a rectangular outline of what he assumed was external light leaking through the edges of a doorway.

Five minutes of cautious but quick walking later, as he didn’t want to rush too much and accidentally miss stumbling upon a trap of some kind that he wasn’t prepared for, he found himself up against a stone wall, the light he’d seen at a distance still outlining an obvious doorway.  Pushing firmly on the stone wall, hidden hinges squealed loudly as the stone door swung away from him, and he needed to blink a few times as bright sunlight flooded the hallway.

Once he was able to see clearly again, he found himself looking at what appeared to be dust-covered red brick wall, cracks running through a few portions of it, but it was apparently still structurally sound enough to stay standing.  Sticking his head out of the hallway, he looked left and right, but it appeared as though wherever he was coming out was enclosed on at least three sides by the brick walls. 

As soon as he set his foot outside to get a better look at what was waiting for him, a notification appeared in front of his face that reminded him of the Assault Wave sections he’d seen in other dungeons.

Warning!  An undead horde has been spotted on the horizon and will be here within minutes!  Deploy your party at strategic points around the town to defend the central tower, where the civilians have retreated for safety!  The Horde Siege Challenge will begin in 5 minutes!

Thaden was taken aback, as he hadn’t expected to suddenly be thrust into a challenge like the Assault Waves as soon as he stepped inside.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the stone door he’d pushed open starting to slowly close, and another notification immediately caught his attention.

All party members accounted for!  Horde Siege Challenge commencing in 4:59!

As a reminder, once the exit doorway closes as soon as the Horde Siege begins, no one may leave until the Siege has been lifted or all the citizens in the tower have been killed.

Uh, oh.

“Should I be concerned?” he asked Sadia, who was immediately cognizant of everything he’d just learned.

She only hesitated for a moment before shaking her head.  “No, I don’t think so,” she responded slowly, as if she was reviewing some information privy to her.  “I believe you should still be able to handle this.”

“Can you tell me what this is all about?  This isn’t one of the challenges that have been seen in other Intermediate dungeons, as far as I know.”

“Let’s get the lay of the land first and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Leaving behind the slowly closing doorway back into the dark hallway, he ventured further out from where he emerged.  Quickly finding that the brick wall was only enclosed on three sides, he looked around and saw that the hallway led into a square stone pillar approximately 20 feet in width and 40 feet tall; there was no sign of where the hallway went, which he put down to more dungeon magic shenanigans, but that little detail was ignored as he caught sight of the ghost town that he suddenly found himself inside.

Similar to the description of the Basic dungeon environment that he was given, he appeared to have suddenly been transported to an abandoned wild west frontier town, complete with a saloon with its swinging doors missing chunks of the wood it was constructed of, a general store with shattered windows, and even a small blacksmith toward the edge of town, with scattered horseshoes lying all over the ground outside of its entrance.  Hitching posts were set up in front of each building, though most of them were cracked or broken entirely, and a few holes in some nearby walls looked exactly like he would expect bullet holes would look like in the wood, though it could be just about anything considering the shape of the town.

There were two things about this abandoned western frontier town that were wildly out of place, however.  First, there were – at least they appeared to be – freshly constructed stone walls in a circular shape around the entirety of the town, reaching 25 feet in height, and they were wide enough that they could fit at least 3 or 4 average-sized people abreast on top of them.  Every 50 feet or so along the walls there was a wider area that extended further into the town, as if for some sort of gathering place for small groups of people.  1He could only assume, from the description of this Horde Siege Challenge he’d gotten a few seconds ago, that members of the Raid Party would disperse along the walls and these extended areas, where they would then defend against the horde as it approached and attacked.

While that wasn’t necessarily something he would expect to see around an old west town, it was the white, cylindrical tower right in the middle of the town, which appeared made of marble and had no windows or obvious entries into at all, that really looked out of place.  It was both futuristic-looking in its simplicity while also appearing old-fashioned, like it was some sort of medieval castle tower, and it was so bright among everything else that it both caught the eye and stood out like as an eyesore.

When he focused on it longer than just a passing glance, there was something attached to it that made itself known while also being unobtrusive to his vision.

Citizens Alive: 100/100

As far as he could tell, there weren’t actually any citizens inside the tower, or if there were, they were probably suffocating since there was no access to the air outside, but he supposed that they were just a fiction the System created to ensure that the Raid Parties attempting to clear this challenge cared about keeping the tower safe.  Regardless of whether or not they actually existed was a moot point, because he wasn’t planning on letting anything damage the tower.

Within seconds of taking in the entire town, Thaden and Sadia were sprinting toward the walls, where stone steps had been added to the barrier every 100 feet or so around the perimeter, and he took them 5 at a time on his way up.  As the countdown at the corner of his vision hit 4 minutes, the Omenic Drifter got his first look at the land outside the walls.

It looked like a desert, plain and simple, though there wasn’t any sand – only dry, cracked dirt.  A relatively flat, dirt-filled desert with withered cacti and scraggly brush, and only a few hills dotting the otherwise flat expanse in every direction.  There was nothing to see as far as his eyes could see…

…other than the dark blob racing toward the town from one direction.  He couldn’t say which direction, however, because despite the sun beating down on them, it was directly above him, as if it was high noon; as such, he had no way of knowing if they were coming from north, south, east, or west – or any other direction in between. 

“I’m guessing that’s the undead horde?”  He couldn’t make them out yet, but he couldn’t think of anything else it could be.  What was more, the dark blob seemed to extend to the sky, as if the undead were also bringing the night along with them; he realized that could become a problem if everything suddenly turned dark while he was trying to defend the town.  His third eye could help to locate the enemy, he assumed, but that still wouldn’t make it too much easier.

“Yes, that’s it.  Do you need to look anywhere else?”

Thaden turned his back on the horde in the distance as he looked over what he could see of the town, noting that there weren’t any gates in the walls, meaning that if the horde wanted to get through, they would have to somehow scale the walls or jump over it, or possibly even destroy it to get their way inside.  After another few seconds of perusal and not seeing anything else of note, he said, “Nope.  So, tell me about this challenge.”

The squirrel waved at the approaching horde.  “As you can see, you’re soon to be besieged by a horde of undead monsters, all of whom want to get inside and destroy the tower,” she said, pointing at the white marble tower in the center of town, “in order to ‘win’.  It is the job of the Raid Party, or in this case you, to prevent that from happening by whatever means are necessary.  You lose if all of your Raid Party is killed, obviously, but also if you let the tower be destroyed entirely and the ‘citizens’ alive inside drop down to 0.  This challenge is unique in the fact that you cannot extract loot from the besieging undead, though you will get a small amount of PICK from each one that is slain, as the rewards you will receive when you ‘win’ are dependent upon a few factors, including how many citizens are still alive at the end.

“The reason that you cannot extract loot from the monsters you kill during the siege is because the horde is not only endless, 95% of them are also typically a lower Level than the recommended Level for this dungeon.  They’re what you would call the ‘cannon fodder’, meaning that they are relatively easy to kill, but there are always more of them to defend against.

“Now, something that the System will tell you when the siege starts is that to ‘win’ here, you need to eliminate the Horde Leaders that will periodically join in with the weaker monsters in concentrated pushes somewhere along the defenses.  The number of these more-powerful Leaders varies depending on the dungeon, but it’s typically somewhere in the 25 to 40 range, with a final Horde Chief acting as the Dungeon Boss that will attack once all the other Leaders are dead.  Once the Horde Chief is dead, the horde will scatter as it loses its leadership, granting the Raid Party the win.”

Thaden thought about what she said for a moment.  “Anything else?” he asked after a few seconds.

“No—actually, there’s one thing.  If the siege starts to go badly, rather than risk everyone’s lives to the horde, it is fully acceptable to fall back and leave the horde unobstructed access to the tower; the Raid Party will lose and earn no rewards, of course, but they are free to leave without being forced to fight to the last in defense.”

“Two real quick questions,” Thaden said, eying the countdown which had just hit two and a half minutes.  “First, are there any restrictions I should know about?  Like, is the Horde Chief invulnerable until all of the other Leaders are dead, or something like that?”

“Yes, the Horde Chief is invulnerable until the Horde Leaders have all been eliminated; and before you ask, no, the Leaders are never invulnerable.”

“Excellent.  Second question, then.  What were those factors you mentioned about the rewards?”

“Number of citizens still alive, number of casualties in the Raid Party, time of completion, and… oh, I see now.  The last factor is based on the number of starting Raid Party members, as Parties can attempt to get a better reward if they bring fewer than the maximum number allowed.”  She eyed him for a moment as he stared out at the approaching horde.  “What are you planning?  Are you going to stand in the middle of the town and let the horde come over the walls, where you can kill them as soon as they get into range?”

Chuckling, he shook his head.  “No, that’s just silly.  I’ve got something else in mind.”

It only took her a second to realize what he was proposing.  “You’re insane, you know that?”

“Absolutely.  Gotta have fun when I can get it, right?”

Sadia just shook her head instead of responding, but even on a squirrel, he could tell when someone was hiding a smile.