"Who are you?" as Iron's grim voice echoed out, the first thing that came to Rastel's mind was to make a sarcastic reply but he quickly discarded his intentions.
Although he was sure he could take them out looking at their levels that averaged at 15, he would rather not go through the trouble of creating unnecessary enmity and battles for himself. Who doesn't want a stress free life?
On the other hand, they were now at the entrance of the enemy's base so they couldn't afford to bring attention to themselves.
Rastel raised up his hands to show he was unarmed and smiled at them. "We're friendlies, chill. We are not enemies."
Iron looked at the duo up and down, although Rastel could see them visibly lower their guard, he still kept his hands up to prevent any trouble. Sing lowered his bow and Snow seemed to relax and walked to Sing's side.
"We have business to attend to here so I would prefer it if the both of you leave" Iron lowered his sword and looked Rastel in the eye.
Rastel on the other hand noticed his eyes moving furtively towards the now exposed cave entrance. The shrubbery that was supposed to conceal the area had been seemingly cut down by a sword, it seemed like Iron really didn't want to give up on the dungeon.
He sighed internally and looked back at the woman. She seemed ready to strike at a moment's notice with the small dagger hidden in her hands. Seeing the situation would probably turn for the worse with no progress, he decided to come clean.
Lowering his hands, he asked them a question." I see you have already found out about the cave here?" he could see their bodies visibly tense up at the question.
"Don't worry, we are not fighting you for it but I have a matter to deal with inside, you see it's like this…" he then proceeded to tell them about the situation of the settlement while making sure to omit Myra's part, he couldn't afford to jeopardize her safety in any way.
And there might be the possibility of someone recognizing him as "Sleeping beauty" from the forums. Although he wasn't sure, there weren't a lot of muans going around with an 11-year-old girl, were they?
After hearing the story, the three of them looked at each other before looking back at the muan player and NPC. It seemed like their story was true and the cave might actually be dangerous for just them to tackle.
Sing tried to look at Rastel's level but saw that Rastel had chosen to hide his. Seeing this, he and the others eventually came to the conclusion that he may be a high-level player who wanted to take down the necromancer's base maybe for a level up or something.
Thinking that there was no problem, Iron mounted his shield behind him and approached them with a smile.
"Sorry about that, you can't be careful when you are outside in the wild" he scratched the back of his head as if he was embarrassed.
"I understand brother, you have to be cautious to prevent an early death." Rastel nodded solemnly like a wise sage before offering his hand up for a shake. "My name is Rastel, who are you guys?"
Iron took his hand. "I am IronMountain, just Iron for short. That little dog over there is Sing and that is our lovely Snow."
"Hey!" Sing's voice came out like a guttural growl at the jibe but Iron just chuckled and Snow looked on with a smile.
"Who is the silent lady, she has been staring at the cave entrance the whole time" Sing pointed at the woman with his bow.
"Well this is…." Rastel found himself stuck. 'Erh…. who was she again? I never knew her name did I?'
"You can call me Doe" the woman's conflicting voice echoed out as she saved Rastel the awkward moment by stepping forward and answering the question.
"Well since we are all introduced, let's talk about how we will…" Iron nodded and began to speak when suddenly, they heard a loud clacking noise coming from the direction of the cave entrance.
An enemy? The rest of them tensed up and started to ready their weapons when suddenly, a blackened skeleton rushed out of the entrance wielding a rusty mace.
CLACK! CLACK!!
The skeleton's joints rattled as it raised its weapon up to attack Iron who was the closest to the entrance. Iron raised his sword to defend himself from the attack but before the hit could land, the undead suddenly flew off to the side.
THUMP! THUMP!!
Two earthen pillars struck the skeleton one after the other from the side. It got sent flying and smashed into pieces onto the side of the hill.
"That was fast!" Iron suddenly yelled in surprise. The casting speed for such consecutive spells would require a relatively high mentality. A mage would have to be at least level 20 to have this high mentality considering the 3-point stat in each level and the need to add points to other important stats such as intelligence.
Rastel just chuckled and gestured to the cave. "It seems like we've been found out. Should we get going?"
Deqi dragged his overweight body across the cave to pack some of his important possessions. The remaining few undead he had left were also going around clearing out the space of anything valuable. There were people coming for him!
After finding out that the army of undead he had sent out hunting for fresh specimens were wiped out, he felt intense pain and remorse. That was his work for the past 20 years!
He had been careful. Unlike most mages that practiced the disliked art and found a place to hide and research their magic, he felt he was smarter. He constantly moved around with his entire army to avoid detection and made plenty bases across three kingdoms! He even had one on the outskirts of the Dragon empire!
And with his travels, he had made a lot of connections and granted many favors with people in the right places, this ensured that he could move almost unhindered and his activities would be overlooked as long as he didn't make too much of a commotion in collecting specimens and didn't disturb the big towns and cities.
Why then did someone as powerful as this decide to pay attention to him this time? What was the money he payed to the guard commander of Kurn for? The lord of Kurn ruled over the northern part of Gorm, nobody that powerful would be able to pass through his territory without the knowledge of him and his guard commander!
Thinking back to the part where his entire collection was wiped out from a single spell, the stuffy environment he was used to started to feel uncomfortable and he felt sweat accumulating in the folds of his neck. 'No matter what happens I must escape today!'
He opened up a small chest that sat on top a table and took out a small ring. It was an inter spatial ring he had gotten from an auction at a very expensive price. At that time, he had used up all his savings and offended a lot of people to get this ring but it was worth it.
As he stared at the silver ring with the black stone sitting in the middle that seemed to swirl with a ghostly fog, he ground his teeth hard and used the back of his sleeve to clean the sweat below his chin. "I must survive!"
Rastel, Doe and the three players walked in a straight formation into the cave dungeon. Although the cave was wide enough to allow 5 people walk side by side, Iron alone took the front with his sword drawn and his other hand ready to grab his shield should things go sideways.
Rastel and Sing stood directly behind him with Sing having his bow drawn, Rastel on the other hand walked beside him looking totally relaxed but his mind was tense and he was ready to strike out should an enemy approach.
Doe and Snow stood at the back as support characters so they would be protected. Although Doe was stationed at the back on accounts that Rastel introduced her as an Alchemist, he was fairly sure that the woman was no stranger to combat. Her eyes that seemed hardened with blood lust and her grip on the small dagger she held close showed that.
And on the other hand, since they would be fighting undead, Snow would end up been the main fighting force as Cleric spells were the bane of any sort of undead. The high elf walked with a calm smile on her face and even had time to tease Iron's skills anytime an enemy attacked them.
Yes, every few seconds, an undead or two or even five would rush out of the darkness to assault them. They were easily dispatched by a few swings from Iron, a round of earth pillars from Rastel or a casual spell from Snow.
It seemed the base of the necromancer was made deep into the ground as the passage kept tilting downwards and the road seemed to go on forever. And as they kept going deeper into the passage, the temperature kept getting colder and there seemed to be a faint mist swirling around. They had walked for about seven minutes before they finally saw a dim light up ahead that bordered what looked like a large cavern.
At the mouth of the cavern stood a huge mass of undead but unlike the blackened skeletons that Rastel had seen before hand, there were a lot of undead that were made from rotting corpses of different races of people.
Snow blanched at the sight and Iron and Sing tensed up. Doe looked unaffected by the sight and Rastel sighed inwardly in his mind. 'We're fighting zombies?'