RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 157

This floor looked more like the interior of a lavish castle than the interior of a stone fort. The first floor was merely made as a defence to prevent the intrusion of spies and the like. That is the reason for its maze-like structure. According to the lore, the dwarves of the fort were apparently very cautious individuals as they lived in a remote and dangerous outpost.

The second floor had the actual royals and the residences of the important decision makers of the fort. It was accordingly better looking and had a proper floor plan which is much more clear and easier to navigate than compared to the first floor.

The second floor has a long main corridor starting from the atrium in which they were. There were definitely smaller passages into from the main corridor, but the boss of this floor would be at the opposite end of the main corridor. The side passages just had a few orcs and a few other treasure chests and surprises.

“Come quick. We must reach the bottom floor and save Lord Bungar,” said the dwarves that followed them down.

“Let us check the entire area. If we go in a hurry, we might face ambush and wouldn’t probably be able to reach our objective,” said Shadow as he cast stealth. “Check the atrium for anything you can find in the meantime,” he messaged in the team chat as he entered the main corridor.

He had already known the way for a long time and his main aim was only to take enough pictures to make a comprehensive guide that his guild could use. He quickly went around taking a few pictures and returned. He didn’t even cross a quarter of the main corridor but took enough pictures for them to start. He still considered clearing the dungeon to be the main property. Though he got the first kill, there is a high chance that some super guild was also right behind them and he didn’t want to take any chances after he lost the hell mode first clear. He realized that even with his knowledge of the game there would a good number of players that could best him.

“Come on. I found a few orcs in the side passages. Let us start with them,” said Shadow as he came back. “What did you fine here?” he asked. It was a first exploration and there was a good chance that even in dungeons there would be a few things that wouldn’t be known to him.

“Nothing but a few books about the dwarves that lived here,” said Merlin who had went through atrium completely. The only thing he found were a few books about the iron forge dwarves that stayed in the castle. The iron forge dwarves were the clan of dwarves that were mainly known for their forging skills in the game. This was one of the reasons that Balthazar wanted to explore the entire floor as there was a high chance of getting forging designs at this floor.

“Huh!?” asked Shadow in surprise. He had no clue about what Merlin had found and wondered if it was anything that would be useful or provide suggestions for a quest.

“It is just about their clan and their expertise and so on. It isn’t anything that is actually useful right now. It is just some of those stuff you find in the atrium of a new place, you know, like introduction to place for visitors,” said Merlin.

“You read it?” asked Shadow.

“Na. Quiet found them and is going through it. She told us a few things about the iron forge dwarves. That’s it,” replied Merlin pointing to Quiet Fire who seated herself on a small broken-down shelf and had a book open in her hands.

He quickly went to her and to check them out. One was about the dwarves clans in general, the other about the iron forge dwarves and third was about how and why they came to construct the fort. These were all things that Balthazar had already known.

“Ok. Let us get moving. We can read these later,” said Shadow pulling them into the main entrance. He had already marked places with orcs where he took Merlin and few others while he had Mob, Bitter Beast and Sultan to check places which he thought were empty of monsters. He needed someone to look every place to check for treasures and he chose ones who could at least retreat themselves safely or heal themselves in case of an ambush.

In this manner, they quickly went through the second floor. The second floor was actually much easier than the first floor as it didn’t have any traps. There were only orcs who were guarding some treasures or ambushed them, but with the troll in Merlin’s control, they made quick work of any monsters that they came across.

Along the way, they also came across groups of orcs which had orc shamans. The shamans didn’t have any weapons like swords unlike Gularg. They were the same size as the other orcs but just had different tactics that would make it hard to use the troll to defeat them.

These groups weren’t large and had ten monsters at most, but the orc shamans were mages that could attack from a distance. So, Merlin couldn’t use the troll on it as the shaman kept its distance from it.

The shamans were the only monsters that other players actually got a decent chance to have a decent fight with. The rest of the orcs just came to the troll to get smashed in a few swings of its club. Merlin also noticed this and started trying to use his subjugation skill on the shaman whenever he got a chance. The dungeon was no longer a challenge but became an experiment to him due to the superb skill of his unique weapon.

He also outfitted the troll with the second gold great sword to check its effectiveness. The sword was actually much more effective in its hand. The orcs are receiving similar damage and even bleed effects while they are not being smashed into pulp at the end. They were just being cut into pieces. This still provided them a better chance to get equipment from the orcs.

Merlin also equipped his servant with armor slowly as they went through the second floor. They took a little more than 30 minutes to clear half the second floor and have managed to open 4 treasure chests in the way. The treasure chests were all silver grade giving them 7 silver equips and 9 bronze equips total. At this time, the troll was equipped with a shield and six pieces of armor. It looked very funny with a sword in one hand and shield in the other and an assortment of armor pieces which looked too small for it.

During this time, they went into 10 shamans of which Merlin tried to make three of them his servants finally succeeding in the last one. That too was because Shadow had helped him. Balthazar remembered that the control type skills usually have better effect when the target is already in a trance or stunned state. So, he cooperated with Merlin and used cheap shot on the shaman after which the subjugation skill which failed the past two times successfully made the shaman Merlin’s servant.’

“We will stick to this idea. I am not really sure if we got lucky or if it has some effect, but we can try,” said Merlin happily. He was very happy that he got another servant and he wanted to check out Shadow’s hypothesis as it would mostly provide him a good way to get servants in dungeons and quests. He found servants to be quite useful as they acted just as he wanted them to and he needn’t worry about them deviating from his instructions as much as the other players.

The shaman servant made it much easier to fight against the other groups of orcs and shamans that came later. They soon managed to reach the end of the second floor in another 30 minutes. The main corridor ended in two rooms. One was a locked warehouse and the other was the court room which was double the size of the atrium.

The court room had the throne and was the point of interaction of Lord Bungar with other dwarves in the keep. It was currently filled with 30 orcs, 3 orc shaman and a troll. The troll was on the throne and had a meter taller than Merlin’s servant troll. It also had a club in its hands.

This was usually considered the hardest boss fight of the dungeon by most players in his previous life because of the number of monsters they had to fight at a time and the monsters including the boss troll didn’t have any specific aggro system they could make use of. They all attacked randomly, and monsters would just usually retaliate against anyone who attacks them. It was bound to be a chaotic fight where they constantly need to escape the trolls swings.

[Dhrome Troll Outcast] (Boss Monster)

Level 15;

HP: 13000/13000;

“A troll and shamans with dwarves?! Kill those traitors,” shouted Dhrome and the orcs started running towards them. It was usually time for the players to use due dynamites and fireworks to split apart the group and attack. But Shadow had different plans as he had helpers.

“Quiet Fire blind the troll when it gets up and focus on shamans. Sultan, Tang, hit and run aim to cripple troll legs. We need you to hold back from the orcs even after blind use firecracker or dynamites to attract and run away from us. Do it only after it gets up. Don’t join our fight,” shouted Shadow.

He turned to the others. “We kill and clear out the orcs as fast as possible. I think it won’t have same behavior as the last boss, being that the grunts are of a different species,” said Shadow. “Anyway, Merlin have your servants start on the orcs, we can see how it goes from there.”

“Ya. We can check its behavior and plan our tactics accordingly,” said Merlin having a look at the troll boss which was still seated on its chair. It looked like it was actually stuck in the dwarven throne and was using the club in its hand to push itself up. It had a comic look with it being stuck in the chair. Balthazar knew this and he also knew that it would only get out of the throne by breaking it once ten of the orcs died. Sultan and Tang were making way towards the troll without involving themselves much in the fight with the other orcs.

Grenadier was using the staff from the previous boss and his damage improved significantly from it. He and Quiet Fire along with Merlin’s two servant shamans managed to aggravate the orcs easily. The others also started attacking the orcs with the two dwarves as they came closer. They kept close to Merlin’s servant troll which was moving in the direction of the orcs.

The idea was the same as the last time – to use the troll to kill the orcs quickly and efficiently. They have already noticed during the past fights that the troll’s attacks damage the orcs faster and are actually giving more loot when scavenged than the scenario when they use their cluttered attacks. However hard they tried, they tend to not always hit humanoid monsters at the same points, especially when those monsters working with each other in cooperation. The trolls strong attacks was the best option.

“Merlin, Bitter Beast need you with me. Let us get another shaman,” said Shadow as he went into stealth. He planned to use his shadow clone for making a cheap shot on a shaman to stun it so that Merlin could get another servant. It is best if they succeed before chrome killed ten orcs and the boss gets into the fight.

The orcs started attacking chrome and the other players. The number of orcs were thrice their own and it was hard to hold them back. So, Merlin had them all retreat backwards slowly as they fought. He told them to retreat so that he would get a chance to get a shaman and they would then attack from behind. They could actually push the orcs back, but Merlin wanted to put some chaos among them and kill a greater number of them at a time.

Though chrome the troll was retreating, every swing of its sword still caused a lot of damage and it was able to block the others attacks quite effectively with it shield that it was surprising.

About fifty seconds later, they were already at the end of the courtroom when Merlin managed to get another shaman as his servant. At that time, it was as they had hoped. The shamans all attacked from behind the other orcs as they were pure mages and the orcs provided them cover from physical assaults which were their weakness. So, the converted shaman was actually behind the rest and started firing from behind the orcs causing confusion and none of the orcs were even blocking these attacks as they had their tanks in front.

At the same time, Shadow had managed to use cheap shot another shaman, this time with his original body (not clone). Merlin and Bitter Beast focused their attacks on the third shaman while the first shaman continued to attack from behind the orcs.

Grenadier and others who were just passively blocking till now also started to attack back to push and kill as many orcs as possible. It would have been hard with the players alone, but the servant troll managed to do so easily with its shield and sword. Merlin got creative and started to make try moves like whirlwind strike which he had seen Crimson Power use. It was actually quite effective in scattering the orcs.

In a minute, the orcs were all aggroed onto the players and chrome, the troll which had already killed more than ten. The troll Dhrome which was seated on the throne till now, took its club and broke the throne it was sitting on with a swing downwards.

“You fools, you enraged me and caused me to lose my throne,” shouted Dhrome. “I will kill you,” it said as it started to move towards them when a fire cloak cast by Quiet Fire covered its face and Sultan and Tang attacked at the same time.

Tang used the same Meteor smash skill to attack. She managed to push it back and it stumbled a bit, but the knockback effect wasn’t strong enough to make it fall back as it did with Chrome. It just took a couple of steps back and started to pat its face in pain.

“Try to cripple its legs. The trolls always move slowly due to their huge body. Make it slower and run back to help kill the rest of these orcs,” shouted Merlin. He had noticed that the troll didn’t actually go berserk like the orc shaman in the first floor. If it isn’t focused on his servants, he was sure that its attacks would deal a lot of damage to them and didn’t want them to risk a close combat fight like they did with the orc shaman. Moreover, he had already seen his own servants capabilities with a club, he didn’t want to see how effective the attacks of a bigger troll would be on his teammates.