The party hadn’t realised how much the shade of the palm trees in Al’Vash had kept the heat off them. As soon as they entered the desert, the air became hot and heavy, rippling across the sands. The sun beat down on them constantly, and they could see nothing on the horizon.
“I didn’t expect it to be this bad,” Amelia said, her new cape rippling in the desert heat.
Sonya continued along like normal despite her heavy pirate getup. She seemed a lot more used to this than everyone else was.
“You get used to it after a while,” she explained, “although I can't say I ever travelled here while wearing plate armour.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” James muttered. “It’s good that heat exhaustion can’t kill you in this game.”
Sonya raised a hand, signalling for them all to wait.
“Sandstorm’s picking up, a few miles out,” she said. The group let out exasperated groans, but she continued regardless. “We have time to find shelter. There’s a set of ancient ruins not far from here. Somewhat of a detour, but it’s preferable to being trapped in a sandstorm.”
“Then let’s make a detour,” Grey said.
“I’d rather tough it out,” Amelia replied.
“That isn’t going to happen.”
“I dunno,” James admitted, “I reckon Amelia could do it. Just not the rest of us. We’ll take Sonya up on her offer. Let’s see what these ruins are like.”
>>>
In what was slowly becoming a common occurrence, Lambda screamed and ran away.
Him and his newly formed party were legging it across the desert sands. They were being followed by a giant king cobra that had teeth as tall as they were. Almost immediately after leaving the safety of Al’Vash, they had awakened a superboss. Gungnir turned around and unloaded a shotgun shell, which did almost nothing to the monster’s hide.
Gungnir
Shotgun
---
Nar’Shada, Grand Serpent of the Sands
99800/100000 HP
---
Gungnir
Shotgun Ammo
3/6
“Why can you just walk into these!?” Mantis screamed, as he narrowly avoided the monster’s poison spit.
“My old party did once,” Ambrosia lamented, not seemingly that flustered but the serpent at all. “They got wiped, I was the only survivor. Then they kept respawning in the monsters den. The monster spawn killed them, over and over…”
“Incredibly helpful,” Lambda snarled. “Let’s try and put some distance between him and us.”
Lambda
Call Forth
---
Lambda’s Abyssal Summon
40/40 HP
The skeleton ran at the snake, only for it to be slapped away by the snake’s massive tail.
Lambda’s Abyssal Summon
0/40 HP
“That’s a lot of distance,” Ambrosia said.
“You don’t need to patronise me,” Lambda replied.
“No, I mean it. We’ve already gotten further than my last party did.”
“Christ, ok, I’m sorry I complained!”
The snake suddenly dived into the sands, burrowing down into the dunes like a giant worm. Soon, it had completely vanished from sight, moving swiftly despite its size.
“You think it’s leaving?” Lambda asked.
His question was immediately answered when the snake came up from directly under them, throwing the group into the air and showering them with sand. It opened its jaws up, ready to swallow them whole, when something struck it in the neck, pushing it away and sending it falling to one side.
Nar’Shada, Grand Serpent of the Sands
99700/100000 HP
The party all fell back onto the ground. Ambrosia activated rocket boosters to slow his descent, grabbing Gungnir and Lambda on his way down, while Mantis landed on his feet with no issue. As they swiped away the dust, they saw the snake hissing at a figure in a dark cloak, holding a longsword. Lambda immediately looked up at their username.
“You’re kidding me,” he muttered
Knight Oblivia
Level 60
Level 40 Saber
“Yo, Oblivia!” Gungnir shouted, waving. Oblivia looked over her shoulder and sighed.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“If it’s not James, then it’s obviously gotta be you,” she muttered to herself, before speaking up. “Glad you got a full party together in the end.”
Gungnir drew her guns. “Alright, let’s take this thing out together!”
She fired her pistol, only for it to completely miss the giant snake. She stood there stunned for a second.
“I had sand in my eye,” she murmured, dejected.
“You’re no match for this thing,” Oblivia replied, reaching for the clasp of her cloak. “How the hell did you wake it up, anyway? This is so far out of the way from your objectives in Hammerfell, you’d have to have a truly awful sense of direction to…”
Oblivia glanced at the party to see them looking incredibly dejected.
“I did say we were going the wrong way,” Mantis said, bitterly.
“Oh, did you now?” Lambda spat back. “If I remember, you were ok with us going southeast.”
“You don’t go southeast, you went southwest.”
Ambrosia nodded. “You went southwest.”
Gungnir shrugged. “You went southwest.”
Lambda looked on in disbelief. “Wait…you all knew? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I thought you knew something we didn’t,” Mantis admitted.
“I thought we were hitting side quests before we would do the main quest,” Gungnir added.
“I knew this would happen, I thought it would be a funny way to die,” Ambrosia responded.
Lambda sighed. “Look, guys, you have to speak up if I’m doing something wrong, you’re m-“
The giant snake hissed to remind everyone it was there. Lambda spun around and pointed the scythe at the snake. “Shut up, we are having a team meeting! You are not allowed to move when players talk, that’s just unfair!”
Oblivia sighed and turned back to the monster. “Get out of here, I’ve got this.”
“You’re going to solo it? Really?” Lambda shouted.
“You lot will just get in my way. I’ve always wanted to solo this anyway. Now’s as good a chance as any.”
Besides, She thought, it’ll pass the time while I wait for them.
She dramatically pulled off her cloak and threw it to the side, revealing her full armour to the party. “Go!”
“Thanks!” Gungnir shouted as she turned and ran. “Hire us for spying again sometime!”
“What is wrong with this party?” Mantis said to himself. Him and Lambda followed her, but Ambrosia stayed put. His armour creaked and whirred as it expelled sand from its joints. The snake dived at Oblivia and tried to eat her, but she managed to dodge to the side, turning into a blur as she moved so fast.
Ambrosia chuckled. “I remember when you first joined. You haven’t changed one bit.”
“The hell?” Oblivia shouted. “Why are you still here? Go!”
Ambrosia opened the menu and sent her a friend request, before turning and leaving.
“I’ll message you when we reach Lakinos Oasis. Meet me there and we’ll talk. Don’t play too long, there’s a sandstorm rolling in. It’s good to see you again, Madison. Let's talk like we used to.”
She turned around and looked at him as he walked away. “Wait, how did you…”
The serpent slithered across the sand, sending up a dust cloud that masked Ambrosia from view as he fled with the rest of the party. Oblivia swung her sword, clearing the dust cloud away.
“Mysteries for another day,” she said to herself. She looked back at the snake. “I saw a guild forming up in Veltan to come hunt you. It’d piss them all off if they found their target slaughtered by one woman. Good thing I don’t like them much.”
Warning
Visual System Failure
“Wait…I’ve heard that bef-“
Oblivia staggered back as her vision was covered in an overwhelming amount of static, white noise blaring in her ears. A few seconds later, it faded, and she was left with a completely different view.
The sky had gone dark. The stars above looked nothing like they usually did when nighttime rolled around in Sable. This night was far darker than any she’d seen playing the game. The serpent that towered above her was nothing but a skeleton with shards of flesh hanging off scarred bone. Wires were wrapped around its body, clumsily holding it aloft like a puppet. The desert sands remained the same, but it was suddenly far colder. It felt truly, utterly dead.
What is this? Oblivia thought to herself. Then the static and white noise resumed, and the world returned to normal as quickly as it had changed.
Visuals fixed
A big ticket has been filed.
Kable Interactive apologises for the inconvenience
Her sudden hallucination only gave her a second to dodge out of the way of the snake lunging towards her. She avoided the attack, but only barely, the tip of her blade lightly piercing the serpent’s scales as it went by. Something had let her see through the game’s veil. Something let her see the madness underneath, like she’d seen back in Kries. She looked around for Draconautis, but he was nowhere to be seen, and he wasn’t the type to be subtle. There was only one other person she knew who could have caused the game to end up like this.
“Cieth,” Oblivia said to herself, “what the hell did you do?”
The creature spat poison at her, but as the poison touched her, Oblivia vanished. In a flash, she reappeared above the monster, slashing it’s neck.
Saber Skill
Void Parry
A stance that can block any kind of attack, and return in kind.
You can enter this stance for exactly 1 second. If hit in this time, you deal half of the attack's damage back at any enemy. Does not work if the attack would do more than 1/4th of your health, or if the target has the Awakening buff.
20 second cooldown.
---
Nar’Shada, Grand Serpent of the Sands
99650/100000 HP
“Damn snake. I thought I was going to have fun fighting you, but now you’ve gotten in my way. When I found those four idiots, I’m going to knock some sense into them.”
Gungnir Stats: Level: 11 VIT: 100/200 STR: 30 DEF: 10 DEX: 30 SPL: 5 INT: 0
Lambda Stats: Level: 11 VIT: 150/200 STR: 15 DEF: 10 DEX: 10 SPL: 25 INT: 0
Ambrosia Stats: Level: 11 VIT: 80/300 STR: 15 DEF: 20 DEX: 10 SPL: 10 INT: 0
Mantis Stats: Level: 11 VIT: 120/200 STR: 25 DEF: 10 DEX: 20 SPL: 10 INT: 0
