Crystalfire Keep Read online

  Still, all in all, it went pretty smoothly. Between my tanking, Kayla’s DPS, and Crysta’s healing, we were keeping our heads above water, no pun intended. Frankly, with all the stress of the lead-in to Crystalfire Keep and the trials of the Vale of the Three Wolves heaped atop my little confrontation with Dr. Fontaine in the real world, it was a blast to actually play EO with nothing on the line. Even if we wiped, well, we would just dust ourselves off and give it another go.

  Speaking of water, the deeper we moved into Tamiroth, the deeper the waters grew from ankles to knees and then to the waist. As if that water itself spread the Darkness, the corruption seemed to grow as well, black, razor-sharp coral starting to grow in misshapen clumps around us and sickly barnacles crusted the walls around the water line. While the stagnant currents didn’t make the place smell good, the fetid odor redoubled as we gathered ourselves before a large, open archway that opened into the Swollen Gallery.

  I could see why it was called a gallery, but I wasn’t sure why it was swollen. It was a long chamber, much longer than it was wide, with an arched roof and numerous small alcoves formed organically out of the tarnished shell. There were … things in those alcoves, maybe beautiful sculptures or display stands at some point. Now, the black coral grew all over them as if the art that had been there served as some sort of seed for the things to grow from. The gallery terminated on the far end in an elaborate balcony.

  Once sectioned off by turquoise-accented gold railings, slimy kelp and seaweed now hung down and wrapped around the grimy rails. That mass of plant matter formed a solid curtain and prevented us from seeing what lay beyond. The water flooding the chamber was waist-deep, though mounds of that same coral that spilled from the alcoves rose above its surface in hills of varying heights. Eyeing it from this distance, I wagered that two avatars at most could have sure footing on one of those piles and it was obvious that the highest mounds, likely the safest places to be above the water, were also the furthest apart.

  Taking a deep breath, I turned around, holding my banner pole out to one side to bar passage. “This is a new boss for me, so everybody listen to Crysta. We follow her game plan.” I looked straight at Wazif. “Just be cool, and we’ll handle this no problem.” While I was sure he would follow direction, I also knew it could be awful nervous to be in a place where a one-shot death was super likely.

  The Ember nodded at me with renewed enthusiasm. “Understood, Shale. If there’s one thing I can do, it is following instructions.”

  “Excellent,” I nodded before looking to Crysta. “You’ve got the floor.”

  I wasn’t sure, but I swore that Burndall scoffed a bit as he gave his sword a couple of crude test swings. Maybe I didn’t need to be worried about Wazif but another Ember entirely.

  Instanced dungeons didn’t have the usual respawning of monsters that the majority of Elementalis had so we had plenty of time for her to go over the specifics. Still, I kept my gatekeeper role. Burndall was acting awfully impatient, and while he hadn’t gone against my lead before, the kid had been playing a bit sloppy over the rest of this run, a bit too cocksure for the fact that he was technically in over his head here, no matter how nice his auction-house-bought gear was.

  If anyone else noticed, they didn’t say anything. Crysta turned sideways from her position in the center of our little cluster so that she could see everyone, her arms draped over the bow she had resting across her shoulders. “Sure, thanks, Shale!” She flashed a smile. “So, yeah, this is pretty simple, really. Lucar the Tide Warlock is one of Lavindre’s newest supporters, corrupted ten years ago after he took the whole ‘Nix are accepting’ bit too far by actively consorting with the Primal Darkness. He was a pretty powerful Sorcerer, but now he’s like a half-Nix, half-octopus guy and Lavindre gave him control of the waters in the Gallery.”

  Burnie made a kind of strangled look. “You know I love lore as much as you, but can we get to the important stuff, like how to totally burninate this spaghetti basket and get what my boy here needs?” He punctuated his question with a pat on Wazif’s shoulder, a gesture that seemed more confusing to the miner than friendly.

  Kayla gave me a sidelong glance at that which I acknowledged with a slight nod. Burndall certainly had a right to be a little miffed with me about me dropping off the map and honestly being a little scarce even after the Vale. That didn’t give him the right to possibly screw up something like this though.

  Shale: Yeah, I am definitely going to have to have a heart-to-heart with Burnie.

  Kayla: Which I did say you should have done the day after we got out of the Vale.

  Shale: Right, right, dangle the fact that you’re far better socialized than me and thus are almost always correct when it comes to this sort of thing in front of my nose.

  Kayla: We all have our strengths, Max, and one of mine is people. There’s no shame that it may not be your strength too.

  Shale: Don’t take this the wrong way but if that’s the case, why don’t you talk to him?

  Kayla: Because one of your strengths is leading. If I talk to him, I’ll mess with that. You can handle it! I have total faith in you!

  Her smile was sympathetic which helped turned my faint glower into a return smile. She was right. Hopefully, the kid’s anxiousness was just short-term. We both tuned back into Crysta’s strategy session. I had missed a good chunk of it, but we had gone over it before a few times before, not to mention I had read over the internal wiki entries for this place on the airship ride over here.

  “… so keep with your partners when he raises the tides, and you’ll be okay,” she explained. “Even if you think it’ll nerf your DPS, back off. There’s only so much room per position, and near the end, there are only three safe perches.” She raised one of her long, thin fingers. “Do not hop onto the tank’s perch, okay? You will die, and even I won’t be able to save you.”

  Wazif paled a little and repeatedly nodded, his knuckles whitening on the grip of his mining pick, while Burndall’s grin broadened. “Don’t worry! We’ll blow the bazooka out of him before he can raise those waters.”

  I cleared my throat. “Don’t get cocky, kid.” I hoped I wasn’t getting ahead of Crysta as I continued, “All the Tide Warlock’s mechanics are triggered by Health Point percentages. We can’t help but have breaks in the fight.”

  Kayla nodded, backing me up as she said, “This is an endurance match, not a DPS race.”

  “So, keep frosty and, like, we’ll be fine.” Crysta swung her bow off her shoulders and back to her ready position. “Briefing complete, chief!”

  I nodded as I lowered my banner and pulled up my shield. “Let’s get that mining node!”

  The group rushed forward, ready for action. Lucar would appear out of the waters at the balcony, and the initial phase of the fight would be a straight-up fight. Still, positioning was key. I’d have to maneuver him into the hall itself, as equidistant as possible from the three tallest coral mounds before he used Tidal Surge the first time. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle, and even if Burnie was a bit aggressive, I didn’t expect any real problems.

  How many times had I thought that in the past in situations like this? Yeah, I should have known better.

  I knew something was wrong when instead of the seaweed curtain that should have closed off the Swollen Chamber, rotting whale bones collapsed across the archway the moment we were through the door. Before I or anyone could process that, the waters surged on the balcony ahead, dark currents swirling and carrying bone and chunks of coral with it. Out of that surge, a figure burst forth, a monstrosity that both matched the images attached to Lucar’s wiki page and was drastically different.

  Instead of the full, muscular upper body of a Nix man, Lucar’s body was atrophied, mottled blue skin pulled taught over wiry muscle and twisted bone. From the waist down, what began as fully fleshed, black-and-white octopus tentacles rapidly shriveled into rotting flesh. By the tips of his tentacles, they were nothing but sharpened bone and stringy te
ndons holding it together.

  “What the donkey rider …?” Burndall managed to get out before the room filled with Lucar’s hollow laughter.

  “The Darkness rises, champions!” the undead thing roared, sending a surprising shiver up my spine. “Come to me, let me show you what all the world will see when the Keep opens!”

  2

  “Stick to the plan,” I shouted as I charged forward. Sure, maybe we were facing a twisted, corrupted, undead Lucar instead of a twisted, corrupted, living Lucar, but we had to go with the strats we had. We could improvise for changes on the fly. It wasn't like we had a choice in the matter.

  My shout snapped the rest of the group out of their momentary shock. I couldn’t blame them, none of us could have expected this. The only reason I was moving first was that it was my job to be ready for anything. Situational awareness was what made a good tank, and I liked to think I was pretty damn good at that point.

  Crysta and Kayla broke for opposite ends of the room, moving straight for one of the ‘safe’ coral piles and practically dancing up to safety. Wazif did the same, just with far less grace and far more brute force, using his pick as a climbing tool to haul himself higher. As I raised my banner to meet Lucar head-on, Burndall was coming up in my wake, his black blade raised and ready to strike.

  Lucar himself glided above the waist-deep water, the brackish pool turning pitch black underneath the reach of his half-flesh tentacles. Though his nameplate read as I expected it to, the fact that he had no listed level immediately caught my attention as well as the Grade S threat level. The conclusion was obvious; the Tide Warlock was a scaling MOB like everything attached to Crystalfire Keep.

  This was both good and bad. The upside was that Burndall and even Wazif would be way more effective here than fighting normal Lucar, being put on a more even par not only against the boss but in relation to the rest of the group. The downside was that Crysta was no longer able to provide a guaranteed win. Everything had gone to heck in a moment, and now instead of slacking off, we would have to fight our very hardest to have a chance to win.

  Speaking of the plan, it was a simple one. I would grab Lucar while Burnie got some initial hits in, then drag him to that just-right equidistant position, allowing everybody in range to both DPS and heal. From there, Burnie and I would split to our piles, the kid with Wazif and I riding solo. That would keep Lucar’s big gun, the Octo Flail, centered on me. I’d just have to save my defensive cooldowns for the periods that the Warlock summoned walls of water to separate us.

  Just outside of melee range, I skidded to a halt, slamming the Banner of Two Nations into the water both to arrest my forward motion and to activate my Defiant Display Gem. Even as the scarlet pulse of a successful taunt radiated out from my fluttering banner, I knew the plan was already going south. The empty black waters beneath Lucar splashed against my waist, bringing a bone-deep chill that was a stark opposite of the warm, salty water we had been pushing through so far.

  Lucar the Tide Warlock’s Pool of Darkness chills you! You take 289 (-192 resisted) Darkness Damage! HP 3731/4020

  Keeping him in the center of the room, his proper position, would wash everyone in that aura and I wasn’t going to bank that it would be safe for those out of the water as well. Primal Darkness, mingled with another element or not, was far too insidious to think that way about it. Unfortunately, those thoughts hit a moment too late to stop the friend most immediately in harm’s way.

  “Burnie, wait!” The words hadn’t even started leaving my lips when Burndall rushed past me, confident in the strength of my taunt to start in on the undead monstrosity. If I didn’t know any better, I would have said that seeing the Warlock as a scaling MOB only made the kid charge the monster faster.

  Burndall’s Basalt Blade cut a gouge into the shriveled flesh of Lucar’s upper body, the glowing runes sliding off the sword and over the monster’s skin even as the corrupted waters seemed to writhe as black specks clung to Burnie’s body. While the kid’s hit did its damage, nicking 3% off Lucar’s Health bar in one swoop, the Pool of Darkness did its work just as quickly. If there hadn’t been damage scaling, Burndall would likely have been down a third in one second. As it was, it still ate a tenth of his HP away, and it would do plenty more if we didn’t act.

  Fortunately, everyone was on the ball. Our casual attitude washed away as we put on our game faces. While I deviated from my intended course, opting for the far side of the Gallery, the release of Crysta’s bowstring echoed out, the sparkling green glow of a Greenlife Arrow whistling past my head and into Burndall’s body. The Ranger was keeping Loi in reserve for the moment while Kayla conjured a quick incantation, sending the cooling reprieve of an Ice Shield over me.

  Even Wazif, though slower than the others, was trying to help, conjuring up a spell that sent soothing warmth through my body, partly counteracting the soul-aching chill of the Darkness.

  Wazif uses Warm the Soul on you! You gain the Boon ‘Warmth’, healing 132 Health per second for 6 seconds. HP 3863/4020

  “Get out of here, Burnie,” I shouted as I rounded Lucar on his right, the octopus-Nix spinning to follow me. I could have probably swiped him with my shield in passing, but I had my mental trigger finger primed for something else. The kid’s Explosive Runes were about to go off, and as that usually drew aggro to him, I kept one eye on my Threat Transfer icon and the other on the far ‘safe’ coral pile.

  Unfortunately, that was the same pile that Wazif was currently perched atop. The miner’s eyes widened, no doubt remembering Crysta’s warning. There was a certain ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ look there, the worst kind of look he could have. I was about to shout again, snap him to his senses, when a lot of things happened all at once, starting with simultaneous explosions, one big, one much smaller.

  The big blast came from Burnie’s Runes popping off, a noise I was most familiar with while the smaller one was accompanied by the acrid odor of burning, dead flesh, the tell-tale sign of Crysta’s Dissolving Cloud arrow hitting on target. Lucar let out an inhuman wail, still right behind me, and I turned mid-run, partly on instinct and partly thanks to the NSAF gear translating Shale’s amazing defensive skills into my own reactions, just in time to raise my Solar Guardian’s Shell against the onslaught of bony tentacles that flailed about the Warlock.

  Lucar the Tide Warlock’s Tentacle Spin tears through the area!

  You are hit (blocked)! You take 0 (-324 blocked, -324 shielded) Physical Damage! HP 3863/4020

  Burndall is hit! He takes 523 Physical Damage! HP 1047/1570

  Lucar the Tide Warlock impales himself on your Light Thorns! His Elemental Shell (Water) interferes with the Primal Light! The Shell takes 8.4% (+.7% vulnerability) Light Damage!

  The flash of light from my shield clashing with the monster’s tentacles was obviously blunted by the brackish water that glistened across his body. It was a surprise to me, for sure, as the corrupted monsters we had fought before wilted before Light Element damage. Past that, at least it seemed like a straightforward mechanic. We could cut through this like any other shield.

  Fortunately, that damage was enough to convince Burnie to back off, recoiling from the hard flailing of bones in his side. It wouldn’t be enough if I didn’t get the Warlock into position, though, assuming anything worked the same with this corrupted version of him. Without a second thought, I held out my hand behind me, the Threat Transfer Gem on the back of my hand glowing brightly as I kept charging for the safe pile.

  I didn’t have to yell out for Wazif to run. He seemed to remember Crysta’s warning all too well as he dove off the coral, splashing foot-first into the brackish water. With Lucar firmly planted to me, I charged past the miner. Wazif huffed-and-puffed the opposite direction, gauging (probably correctly) that it would be better to take a hit from the Pool of Darkness now and get to a fresh perch than wasting time with a fancy maneuver that might get him caught in a rising tide. Using my banner pole like a walking stick, I wedged it into a crease in the
coral and used it to pull me higher, even as the Warlock’s black aura tore away the rest of the icy shield protecting me.

  No one was sitting on their laurels as I finally got the Warlock where I wanted him. Kayla, Crysta, and I had all resocketed our Elemental Mod Gems to fit the Water-based instance, so instead of the crackle of Ice Spears, the air was split by cracking thunder and ozone filled the gallery from the Lightning Spear erupting from Kayla’s staff.

  “Maybe this will blow away that shell in one go,” she shouted above the thunder, and I hoped the same. While this wasn’t nearly as intimidating as the Dark Rider had been, this certainly wasn’t a fight we wanted to drag out.

  Kayla’s Lightning Spear hits Lucar the Tide Warlock! Her Air Elemental attack conflicts with the Elemental Shell (Water)! The Shell takes 56% (+12% vulnerability) Air Damage!

  The electricity splayed over the Warlock, black water sizzling and popping, burning away much of it. Though now mostly dry, drips of water seemed to boil up from his withered flesh. We’d have to keep hitting him to make a hole for someone to hit him with a coup de grace and finish the fight.

  Crysta must have had a similar idea of finishing this quickly as she concluded a prayer, her head bowed. “Primal Light, fill us with your sacred rays and give us the strength to strike down the Darkness,” she cried as she raised her hands towards the arched ceiling above. Though there was no sky to crack, shafts of pure, warm sunlight engulfed our group, each of us earning our own personal spotlights. That light ran through my body, mending wounds and counteracting the horrible cold of the creeping darkness before pouring out my body.

  Crysta prays to the Primal Light! Your group gains +28% Light and Darkness Resistance, heals 6% of their Health Points per second, and gains Light Elemental Thorns causing 220-330 damage for 15 seconds!