The Dragon's Wrath: Shadows in the Flame by Brent Roth Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Brent Roth
own demise, to react and roar and intimidate the NPCs that stood before it.
And then it roared.
“Fire.”
Sounds of electricity cracking the air, thunder splitting the sky… of quick projectiles whizzing past as lightning illuminated and reflected off arrowheads, all the while dark spheres of blackish-purple dotted the scene. An onslaught of varying degrees, deadly and brutal yet quick and efficient.
A one-second barrage.
And then it fell.
Haggard faces, heavy breathing and cold sweats accompanied the tense atmosphere as many an NPC stood by. Cautious yet patient, waiting for me to answer their questions. They didn’t speak but their eyes conveyed the message they so dearly wanted to ask.
What, why, and… how?
“All of you have now killed the strongest creature around these parts,” I started to explain casually. “The scariest local monster known to the North. A legend, a myth, a story to scare the children. Now, you’ve slain it, slaughtered it even, with your own hands.
“Let this be a lesson to you, nothing, and I mean nothing, can hamper or hold you back except for yourself. If you wish to progress, if you wish to succeed, then the burden is on you. When you first came to me, you could hardly feed yourselves.
“And now? Together, as a cohesive unit that works together, now, you can decimate a beast as strong as this one here in a single flash. One single flash. Alone you are weak but together, together you can achieve anything.”
Turning to look at the corpse of the troll, I felt a slight amount of pity for it as it met such a cruel end… but in the end, it was nothing more than a tool for my purposes. That was the design of the game, any game really. Creatures and monsters were nothing more than tools and objects to be used by players to progress towards that finality.
The finality of course, being whatever end the game had in store for us. For now, that end was nowhere in sight. The likelihood that I saw the mid-hundreds in levels before the end was high… and that might only be the end of my story. One could easily hit levels in the thousands. The only thing that mattered was time.
And as of now, time was on my side.
“Class dismissed,” I said quietly as I turned and started to walk away.
Chapter 79: The Cave
(Friday, November 26th Game Day / Wednesday, April 21th Real Day)
I had left the NPCs to do as they pleased, to hunt as they saw fit or to return to base if they had grown weary of the trip. What they decided to do was no longer of any concern to me. The only thing that mattered to me, was that they be ready for the next raid.
They were adequately trained and could handle themselves so long as they stayed together. Cohesion was stressed from the very beginning, drilled into them daily for months in-game to the point that I wasn’t sure if they could function by themselves anymore. In a way that might be a bad thing but I didn’t want any heroes or individuals.
That type of suicidal behavior was better left to the undying me.
After killing the [Frost Troll] we continued to clear the forest while heading on an easterly course all the way until we arrived at the Rattanorv cave. Once we arrived, I let them loose inside it. The collective of rats weren’t much of a threat to a trained group of NPCs and the results showed.
The cave was cleared in record time.
I wanted to call my troops an army but they dabbled with the ocean-going vessels and performed beach landings too. They weren’t explicitly navy-types, so in a sense I guess they were more marine units. None of those terms really fit the image I had in my mind though. I could call them Vikings, I suppose.
That worked for me.
Alone in the cave, I had all the time in the world to explore every nook and cranny. The first time I was here my arrogance and the situation took hold and didn’t let go until it was too late. Then the second trip happened while I
And then it roared.
“Fire.”
Sounds of electricity cracking the air, thunder splitting the sky… of quick projectiles whizzing past as lightning illuminated and reflected off arrowheads, all the while dark spheres of blackish-purple dotted the scene. An onslaught of varying degrees, deadly and brutal yet quick and efficient.
A one-second barrage.
And then it fell.
Haggard faces, heavy breathing and cold sweats accompanied the tense atmosphere as many an NPC stood by. Cautious yet patient, waiting for me to answer their questions. They didn’t speak but their eyes conveyed the message they so dearly wanted to ask.
What, why, and… how?
“All of you have now killed the strongest creature around these parts,” I started to explain casually. “The scariest local monster known to the North. A legend, a myth, a story to scare the children. Now, you’ve slain it, slaughtered it even, with your own hands.
“Let this be a lesson to you, nothing, and I mean nothing, can hamper or hold you back except for yourself. If you wish to progress, if you wish to succeed, then the burden is on you. When you first came to me, you could hardly feed yourselves.
“And now? Together, as a cohesive unit that works together, now, you can decimate a beast as strong as this one here in a single flash. One single flash. Alone you are weak but together, together you can achieve anything.”
Turning to look at the corpse of the troll, I felt a slight amount of pity for it as it met such a cruel end… but in the end, it was nothing more than a tool for my purposes. That was the design of the game, any game really. Creatures and monsters were nothing more than tools and objects to be used by players to progress towards that finality.
The finality of course, being whatever end the game had in store for us. For now, that end was nowhere in sight. The likelihood that I saw the mid-hundreds in levels before the end was high… and that might only be the end of my story. One could easily hit levels in the thousands. The only thing that mattered was time.
And as of now, time was on my side.
“Class dismissed,” I said quietly as I turned and started to walk away.
Chapter 79: The Cave
(Friday, November 26th Game Day / Wednesday, April 21th Real Day)
I had left the NPCs to do as they pleased, to hunt as they saw fit or to return to base if they had grown weary of the trip. What they decided to do was no longer of any concern to me. The only thing that mattered to me, was that they be ready for the next raid.
They were adequately trained and could handle themselves so long as they stayed together. Cohesion was stressed from the very beginning, drilled into them daily for months in-game to the point that I wasn’t sure if they could function by themselves anymore. In a way that might be a bad thing but I didn’t want any heroes or individuals.
That type of suicidal behavior was better left to the undying me.
After killing the [Frost Troll] we continued to clear the forest while heading on an easterly course all the way until we arrived at the Rattanorv cave. Once we arrived, I let them loose inside it. The collective of rats weren’t much of a threat to a trained group of NPCs and the results showed.
The cave was cleared in record time.
I wanted to call my troops an army but they dabbled with the ocean-going vessels and performed beach landings too. They weren’t explicitly navy-types, so in a sense I guess they were more marine units. None of those terms really fit the image I had in my mind though. I could call them Vikings, I suppose.
That worked for me.
Alone in the cave, I had all the time in the world to explore every nook and cranny. The first time I was here my arrogance and the situation took hold and didn’t let go until it was too late. Then the second trip happened while I
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