After leaving the tavern, Kael ambled through the streets of Gemspire, browsing the various shops and player-run stalls. He sifted through wares, picking things up and putting them down, but never found what he was looking for.
Lila, on the other hand, was having a grand time, buying several rare gems. Seeing Kael come up empty-handed, she grew curious. "Kael, what are you searching for?"
"Gems."
"There are tons of gems here. What kind are you possibly looking for that you can't find?"
"An Opal," he said. "One with level reduction."
"Level reduction?" Lila didn't understand what that meant. Kael offered no explanation.
Just then, Eldric approached with a few of his cronies in tow.
"Hey, Dawnbreaker. My sister wants to see you."
Kael acted as if he hadn't heard a thing and continued browsing.
"Are you deaf? Nymeria is looking for you!" Eldric snapped.
Kael casually cleaned out his ear with his pinky and turned to Lila. "Do you hear a fly buzzing?"
"Mhm." Lila covered her mouth, stifling a giggle.
"Man, the pest control in Thaloria is really lacking," Kael said with a sigh. "So many annoying flies buzzing around. It's giving me a headache."
"You—" Eldric was about to explode, but he remembered his mission and forced his anger down. He took several deep breaths to steady himself. "Sir," he said through gritted teeth. "My sister Nymeria requests your presence."
Only then did Kael stop fiddling with the gems on the stall. He turned, a cheerful, almost mocking, smile on his face.
"Nope!"
"FUCK!" Eldric blurted out, having picked up some of Earth's finer vocabulary. "You're fucking with me!"
Kael turned his back on him again, ignoring him completely. "Lila, it's getting late. Let's log off and get some rest."
"Okay!"
Eldric glared at Kael's back, his eyes practically shooting flames. But as he watched them walk away, he noticed something strange. They weren't heading for a safe zone or the tavern to log out. They were walking towards... the embassy?
Before he could puzzle it out, a frantic message popped up from one of his subordinates.
"Sir, bad news! Someone's attacking the Dragon's Tooth Quarry!"
Another message came in a second later.
"We're under attack at the Veridian Vein!"
"What's the panic?" Eldric scoffed. "As if we need to worry about a bunch of trash getting through our defenses." He wasn't concerned. People were always trying to raid their holdings. Those two quarries were House Myrden's most profitable, and they were defended by their most elite players.
"Who has the balls to make a move on House Myrden territory?" he demanded.
"The enemy force is huge, sir. It's a coalition—House Blackwood, House Beaumont, and all the guilds formed by the Earth immigrants."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to NovelBin for the genuine story.
A knot of unease tightened in Eldric's stomach. It wasn't the numbers that worried him. A terrible possibility popped into his head. "Are Dawnbreaker and Lila there?" he asked urgently.
"No, sir."
Eldric let out a breath of relief. But the next message made his blood run cold.
"But... at Dragon's Tooth Quarry... they have Norlun."
"Holy shit!" Eldric immediately fumbled to open a chat window with Nymeria.
***
Cypress Point Estates, Houston, Texas. Villa 8.
Kael and Lila were enjoying a romantic candlelit dinner. Lila raised her wine glass, gently clinking it against Kael's.
"Why didn't we just go and help them attack the mines directly?" she asked.
Kael savored a sip of the wine before answering. "This isn't our home server, Lila. Do you really want to go on a killing spree just to get locked up in a Thalorian jail?"
"Then why did you give them Norlun?"
"That's why I logged out at the embassy," he explained.
"Hehe, you're so clever."
"Just experienced," Kael said, not with pride, but with a touch of melancholy.
The first time he had hopped over to the Vesperia server, he had made that exact mistake. After killing a player and taking their loot in the wild, he had brazenly walked into the main city, only to be swarmed by a squad of level 60 elite guards and thrown in jail for three full days. It was a lesson learned the hard way.
Lila suddenly remembered something. "Don't you have that Pass Token? Why would you be afraid of that?"
"The red-player immunity from the Pass Token doesn't work on foreign servers," he explained. "It's only effective within the cities of the Mythrosia Empire."
"Oh, I see."
After being jailed in his past life, Kael had researched every possible way to evade capture on other servers. The embassy trick was just one of them. He had others, but he hadn't had time to prepare them on this trip.
"You know," Lila said with a playful glint in her eye, "that female guild leader, Serinelle, asked me for your private contact info."
"Huh? Did you give it to her?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Uh..."
"You hesitated! Don't tell me you've got a thing for that curvy guild leader?"
"No."
"You answered way too fast. You're definitely hiding something."
"Well..."
"See! You can't even deny it without thinking about it!"
"Uhm..."
“Pfft!” Lila burst out laughing at Kael's utterly lost expression. She loved teasing him. He was so stoic and formidable in the game, but completely awkward in moments like this.
"Hehe, I love it when you make that face," she said, standing up and walking over to him. She took her napkin and gently dabbed a smudge of sauce from the corner of his mouth.
The candlelight flickered, casting their intertwined shadows on the wall. They leaned in and kissed, a tender moment that slowly deepened into something more.
That night was one of romance and passion, a blur of whispered words and tangled limbs that lasted until the first light of dawn.
And on that same night, House Myrden knew only exhaustion.
The sieges on the Dragon's Tooth and Veridian Vein quarries were savage, more ferocious than any they had ever faced. Their defensive advantages meant little against the sheer, overwhelming numbers of the attacking force.
Dragon's Tooth Quarry was a particular nightmare.
Norlun, the 60-million-HP boss, had summoned four elite ants with ten million HP each, and a leader-class ant with thirty million. Worse, the Leafcutter Chieftain it had summoned could use Mass Resurrection. The defenders would fight tooth and nail to bring down a single Elite Carrion Ant, only for the Leafcutter to casually wave a leaf and bring it right back to life. It was utterly soul-crushing.
Protected by these behemoths, the attackers' morale was sky-high. Their gear and gems were inferior to the defenders', but that gap meant nothing in the face of the bosses. A single AoE shield from the Enslaved Rock Ant Chieftain gave the entire attacking army a flat 3,000 armor boost.
In the end, House Myrden was forced to abandon Dragon's Tooth to consolidate their forces and protect the Veridian Vein.
The battle there was just as intense. While they didn't have to face Norlun, they did have to deal with the [Fire Ant Chieftain] Lila had summoned with her [Ant Queen's Medallion].
[Fire Ant Chieftain]: Level 33
HP: 25,000,000
Magical Attack: 13,550
...
The chieftain was a terrifying magical siege engine, lobbing powerful spells from extreme range that tore down their fortifications. The defenders had the high ground and a range advantage, but the attackers had a swarm of healers dedicated to keeping the boss topped up.
The Fire Ant Chieftain systematically dismantled their watchtowers and bunkers one by one. If not for the reinforcements arriving from the fallen Dragon's Tooth Quarry, Veridian Vein would have been lost as well.
The battle raged until dawn.
When the sun rose, the coalition led by House Blackwood had claimed Dragon's Tooth Quarry. House Myrden had successfully defended Veridian Vein.
Nymeria stood on the shattered ramparts of the mine, staring out at the scarred, smoldering landscape. She hadn't slept all night, and her eyes were bloodshot. A single, bitter thought consumed her. She should have gone to see Dawnbreaker herself.