RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 183

“You guys have a pet, yet?” asked Shadow as they entered.

“I have one,” said Rudra pointing to his eagle which was perched on his shoulder.

“Not that. I mean nocturnal ones. I would suggest a nighthawk eyas if you want a scouting pet. They have more here,” said Shadow.

“Ok. Slaine can get that, but what about the rest of us? I hope you didn’t want all of us to buy scouting pets, did you?” asked Perennial Light. “Just scouting pets aren’t enough to fight in the night. We have heard of players attempting it already.”

“No. That is not what I had in mind,” replied Shadow. “I have found a light source which can be tied to a bird’s feet and with it in the air, we can have a good source of light. It will be much easier with that in the air providing us guidance. I wanted birds so that they can stay in the air away from the other beasts.”

“But it is true. We don’t need all of us to buy the scouting beasts. There are variety of nocturnal beasts which you could go and check,” said Shadow taking them to the second floor. After some time, Slaine ended up with a nighthawk, while Perrenial Light took a rock python to support his physical attacks. He was a druid who had got a unique staff from the Shrine similar to Merlin and it mainly had magical attacks and support spells. So, he decided to follow a magical type build for himself and chose a physically strong pet. The three of them all bought a pet pouch.

Once they were outside the store, Shadow took the team outside the Welog town to hunt. At the gates, he had tied the equipment to his pet, so that two containesr containing two fireglows each were attached to each of the bird’s legs. As it flew a few meteres above them, it threw a mild light all over the place. Though it is not the same as sunlight during day time or even like having a lantern, it still allowed a player to observe his surrounding to a certain range.

“The range is quite small, but I doubt we can use the lamps for scouting. It is like painting a target over yourself,” said Slaine. “It could still be killed by a beast in the forest unless it can fly higher.”

“It can, but the light that comes down to us will be very mild. It won’t be of much use for us then. That is why I want to go beyond these small woods to reach this place,” said Shadow sending them an image of the map on which the directions to the salamandrids habitat were marked. He had made an image of his path after he had killed the salamandrids.

“We can get hold of more fireglows at this place, but it is very dangerous and will be filled with high level monsters. The fireglows will be along with salamandrids which are level 18 beasts and even attacking them physically inflicts fire damage on us. But once, we have more fireglows we can hunt during the night increasing our level faster than the others,” said Shadow explaining his plan.

“You got those from killing those salamandrid?” asked Rudra.

“Yes.”

“Knowing you, you would have killed more if possible. What stopped you?”

“It is dark, and I need someone to keep a lookout when I am attacking them. I could be ambushed by other beasts. I got these in the early stages of twilight. Now, there might be more beasts prowling around. So, we need to have lookouts capture the fireglows and kill the salamandrids quickly,” said Shadow.

“Ok. Let us go. I will be the scout along with Roll,” said Slaine. “The rest of you can focus on the beasts and insects. We have already emptied our bags at the bank and stocked up on health and mana potions like you told us.”

“I need to explain more about the place. There will be random burst of fire from the ground and lava from the air occasionally. We need to be very careful. By the way, did you guys hear of any fire protection items or consumables?”

“No, didn’t hear of such items yet and based on the thing you just told, is it really advisable to get to the place for a few of fireglows can’t we get them anywhere else. We can also use the ones available right now,” said Perennial Light.

“We won’t be going deep into the region. Just skimming the outskirts. The deeper parts near the volcanoes don’t have low level monsters. We just need to be on lookout for the occasional big ones. We all have scopes and we plan to have two of us on lookout permanently during this hunt for the bugs. So, it is quite safe. The chance of a random attack from the surroundings like ground fire or lava spouts is much less on the fringes of the place,” said Shadow trying to convince Light.

“Let us try it out. If we get more fireglows, it is a good thing. If we notice any danger coming towards us, we can evade and then channel our hearthstones. At worst, we will die once and lose 10% experience points. It is nothing bad. With the unique equipment, we already are stronger than those with a level or two more than us,” mediated Rudra deciding to attempt it once.

They slowly made their way through the forest. Realizing that nighthawk could be killed easily with such a low light if it hung low among the trees, they decided to pit it Perennial Lights armor as he was the magical class player and coudl attack from a distance. The dim light of the fireglows actually attracted quite a few of the beasts of the forest. Luckily, the half of the team were at level 16 and the others at level 15 with three of them having unique weapons and they were fighting beasts at level 15 or 16 at the very most. They kept killing them and managed to travel in the forest for about 40 minutes before it became hard.

“The light is attracting too many beasts,” said Perennial light. Brick and Rudra have already taken out shield and were using it to block the attack of the beasts continuously.

“We could just put the lights in our bag temporarily scout using the night hawks and make way till our destination. We are already quite close to it. Would just take 10 minutes,” suggested Roll.

“Ok. We will try that out. Perennial keep the lights away. We will go ahead in the dark after we clear these wolves,” said Shadow agreeing with the decision of the others. Perennial Light put the lights inside and they cleared up the beast around them before they let out the two nighthawk eyases. Perennial Light also released his pet, the python to stay close behind one of the nighthawks as guard while Slaine guarded his own pet. Shadow and Roll went into stealth and took the lead in scouting the forest as they slowly made way to their destination.

In another 20 minutes, they reached their destination. The rest of the team were quite surprised to see the environment there. It was their first time experiencing such a hot climate in the game and they started to notice the effects it had on them. Shadow had already warned them about the climate during their journey, but none of them felt it good enough.

“Slaine and Roll, there are a few trees here. Climb them and check for salamandrids. I would suggest to not use pets in this area. Most beast are higher level and could kill them easily,” said Shadow sending the team a picture of the beast that he had previously killed. He had the others hiding behind shrubbery.

The team slowly scouted the area and found quite a few new beasts that they haven’t seen before. They soon noticed that all those beasts, the ash panther, cinder wolves, ember horn deer. All of them were above level 18 and few of the beasts were even stronger.

The ash panther was the only one that they found alone, the rest were all pack animals and were in small groups at the very least. If they weren’t hiding in the surrounding vegetation or they didn’t have scopes which extended their range of vision, they would have certainly died.

“This place is much more dangerous than you have described,” said Roll. He was having a really hard time as he and Shadow were the ones that had to scout ahead to check the surroundings before they could move. They didn’t want to get towards the volcanoes as the beasts would only get stronger. So, they were moving in a curve maintaining the distance from the volcanoes. Shadow and Roll, being assasin class players had to take on the duty of scouts in this place while Slaine kept a lookout at the rear.

Though they didn’t actually get to kill any salamandrids for the past half hour, they managed to make note of the terrain of the place and mapped it. Through their scopes, they found a few herbs like the flamegloves and sootleaf which can be used in potions and also had a few glimpses of the fire spouting from the ground and once a lava chunk that fell through the air. It frightened them as the damage from such a thing would be fatal to the players.

Shadow had slowly had them get to the places of these environmental hazards as there was a high chance of finding ores at these places. The others were afraid to get closer, but Balthazar knew that there was no chance of another hazard close to the vicinity of a previous one in a short frame of time. So, he went to the place to check. He wasn’t very lucky and got only a few copper ore and a silver ore. Though the rest of the team were impressed by these, Shadow was not. He had seen better results in his past life, and he didn’t yet find any fireglows.

“I think we should also concentrate on the Welog town and the place. This is like a treasure trove. We couldn’t find copper on sale and we got both copper and silver along with a few unknown herbs,” suggested Perennial Light as they were checking the area.

“No, this is just the outskirts and we are a small team. When more people come in large numbers to farm here, the reaction from the native life here would be large. It is best to not involve the guild in it. There will a number of deaths and the place will be much hotter during the day and will be impossible to stay here without fire resistance. Magical classes will find it hard as all strong spells need a few seconds to cast them, but the fire damage will continuously interrupt you,” explained Shadow.

“I have tried to be here during the daytime, and I suffered fire damage during last few hours of the day time, so believe me it is a waste. There will be high level beasts even ones with level 30 and 40 as we go a bit closer to the volcano. We will simply waste our experience if we farm here. So, it is best to do this at night. We can have a few players get reputation in this town, even get a good number of players posted here, but don’t go deep into this area in large numbers,” warned Shadow.

After that they continued for another 5 to 10 minutes when Slaine finally spotted a salamandrid which popped out of the ground in the area which they had already crossed. “Found a salamandrid. It is level 19 and 2-metre-long,” informed Slaine in their chat.

They quickly moved back towards the location of the salamandrid. There were two fireglows that were already hovering over it. “That is very large, and it will be hard to kill it,” said Rudra looking at the beast. “Can we just capture the two fireglows and escape?”

“Once we capture the fireglows the salamandrid will attack and follow us. It is quite fast when it is aggravated and capable of jumping long distances. It won’t be possible to get rid of it easily or quickly which only makes it more difficult for us in this environment,” said Shadow.

“I will take lead with Roll to capture the fireglows. We need to get into stealth capture them at a time,else we will lose them. When you are ready, we will count to three and capture them at a time.,” said Shadow as he took out the other net he had brought from store and gave it to Roll along with a contaner. “Don’t let the net touch the body of the salamandrid. It will burn up.”

“After you two capture the fireglows?” asked Slaine.

“Roll gets away and I will attack it temporarily. I will give the signal when you guys need to attack. Just be ready and don’t attack till I give the signal. Aim for its head,” said Shadow.

He went into stealth along with Roll and a few seconds later the pair of them were behind the salamandrid. They ended up catching the two fireglows while salamandrid attacked them and a couple of seconds later, Shadow had moved away and used the same method as always to cut up its belly when it jumped at him. He immediately called for the others who rained their attacks on the salamandrid.

The salamandrid was level 19 and his attack had caused less damage on it, but the beast had a big enough cut on its underside to hinder its movements like it happened before. Though his own attack didn’t cause as much damage as before, the attacks from five others caused much more damage to it than he managed to individually.

He followed up with his usual attacks on its head and then used the dynamite in meat to injure it further. This time the attack didn’t cause the same amount of damage as before, but the salamandrid still died under the attacks of the five players.

“Might need to get better explosive designs if I plan to use it in this manner at higher levels,” thought Balthazar as he realized that the dynamite caused less damage than before. He might have had to continue fighting it for at least double the time as the other salamandrids.

“Dude! Are you a bit suicidal that you ran in its direction, when it jumped at you?” asked Brick. “Even a guardian would be crushed by that monster.”

“Its underside was its weak point. I can’t think of a better way to kill it faster,” replied Shadow.

“Still, that was a bit reckless. It also made a lot of noise. I think it is better to injure its belly like you did and use that chance to escape from the next time,” suggested Slaine.

“Why? We got a great haul. Even got 140 experience points each. We were hardly getting a total of 400 points per beast when we killed in the forest,” asked Brick who was cutting up the salamandrid corpse to forage for materials. Shadow only took the firestone and left the rest for the team.

“Because it is taking time and the area is dangerous. The beast roared very loudly after the explosion in its body. We have managed to kill it but, I already see an ash panther in one direction and cinder wolves in the other coming here due to the commotion.,” explained Slaine. “We don’t want to fight them and might have to use our hearthstones to get away and return again.”