"Who is this weirdo?"
"Is that one of those weird people?"
"Big bro, is that a pervert?"
"Don't look her in the eye! Maybe she will go away?"
Black Raven walked through the crowd oblivious to the bewilderment of the surrounding players.
Black Raven was a very good assassin, it was like the assassin class was made for her. From disguises to utilizing her stealth abilities down to her delicate use of her skills to take down a target. She had accomplished some impressive missions under her name.
So, she was very confident.
So confident in-fact that she forgot that she was a player and had a marker floating right above her head to denote exactly that.
She walked around with an unsteady gait and wobbly legs. It was honestly a very impressive act. So impressive that anyone who saw her would be hard-pressed to wish to help her walk to whatever her destination was without displaying a single frown.
Anyone who wasn't a player that was.
"Damn! People are really taking this too far! It is just a game!" one elven player passing by exclaimed out loud when he saw her wobbling through.
If Black Raven was someone with common game sense, she would have known that putting on a cloak would hide her marker, that was what made cloaks so popular. They were efficient ways to easily hide your face and mask your identity as a player.
Many Pk-ers used them to assassinate other players and hide their identity and it was said that the best merchant player in the game built his business empire by selling cloaks to players.
Black Raven was currently embarrassing herself to the max but it was lucky that her disheveled hair hid her face. It didn't stop people from taking pictures though. The legend of the hardcore role-player was going to dominate the forums for a while.
If someone was to follow the oblivious Black Raven, they would think that she was just moving around the streets randomly without purpose. But her sharp eyes underneath were currently filled with a calculating gaze.
As she moved, she entered corners and followed streets that allowed her to survey most of the district while quickly closing in towards the town square.
That way, she could easily find her target before he left and if by any chance she missed him, she would be able to arrive at the square quickly enough to try and track him down.
But it didn't take so long. About thirty minutes later, she spied the large frame of Redbone and the rest of the team moving through the crowd.
She pulled back and watched from a distance, biding her time and thinking up scenarios.
Redbone was a troublesome opponent and he was a shield warrior, the perfect counter to her assassin class in combat.
If she couldn't take him out from the shadows, she couldn't risk fighting him head-on. He also had a team around him which made it more troublesome.
Although Black Raven was a decisive person and quickly realized that she had to kill Redbone, she wasn't in any way a rash person.
A good assassin was never rash.
As she stood by a building, watching Redbone moving through the crowds intently, she thought up her plan of attack.
'This district is too crowded. Although that will usually be a bad thing, I can work it to my advantage here. The guard captain in charge of the district is corrupt and smugglers have free rein, as long as I make it clean, there is a possibility….'
Just as Black Raven was thinking to herself, she suddenly felt a large but gentle hand on her back.
Her body tensed up and a dagger appeared in her broken arm that was hidden under the large cloth within the blink of an eye. Before she could take any action though.
"Are you okay ma'am? Do you need help going somewhere?" a gruff but kind voice entered her ears.
Black Raven turned her head to look at the source of the voice.
A huge bearman wearing nothing but a large tunic with a belt at his waist was looking at her with concerned eyes.
On his shoulder sat a cute little girl with a ponytail and bright blue eyes. She was clutching a weird looking doll while looking at her curiously.
By the side was a tanned skinned young boy with a small frown on his face. His thick hair had bangs that covered his forehead and he looked very serious, his amber eyes looked adrift like he was currently thinking of something and his mind wasn't there.
"Ehm...." Black Raven was stunned.
She didn't think that somebody would stop her with the intention to help her with something and sighed in her mind.
"Are you tired? Big brother Baluu can carry you on his shoulder." The little girl offered gently.
Baluu rolled his eyes and chided her.
"Hey, Myra. Stop offering my shoulders out for rent."
Black Raven was snapped out of her thoughts as she suddenly realized who these people were.
'Isn't this the grandmaster's son and the bearman that are friends with sleeping beauty? And this girl…...' she took a closer look at Myra who was currently arguing with Baluu and noticed Amba's figure.
'That doll somewhat looks like that golem. Just as I thought, this girl is related to sleeping beauty.' Realizing this fact, she was suddenly put in a dilemma.
'Should I warn them?' she furrowed her brows.
If she warned Sleeping beauty on time, she might be able to create a variable that would enable her to kill Redbone. Looking at the trio, she made up her mind.
"Thank you very much, nice man." She said in a croaky voice.
Her voice interrupted Baluu and Myra's bickering.
"Can you escort me to the town square?" she asked shakily.
"Of course ma'am." Baluu said with a smile and proceeded to help her.
Black Raven's eyes glimmered underneath her hair as she thought of a way to warn them and escape immediately.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
"Tank! Tank!"
"Yes! Use the multi-shot and aim for its ears!"
"Ah! I've taken damage! Cleric! Hey cleric, why are you hiding all the way over there!?"
"Your father is the one that is hiding! Stay in one place and let me do my job!"
Rastel's eyes glistened happily when he saw various players hunting down beasts in teams of three or four.
They had arrived at the large mine that was within the vicinity of Eadon. This mine was one of the major sources of revenue for Eadon and was rumored to be the reason why grandmaster Vulcan was currently residing there.
Before the discovery of the mine, Eadon had been a simple agricultural town that was tasked with sourcing food for the city of Kurn.
But although the presence of the mine changed things, Eadon was still heavily engaged in farming which was made evident by the large grain fields in front of the town.
The mine always faced heavy traffic though and it was generally split into three sections.
The upper levels were free for all. Plenty of miners and even common folk from the town came over to mine and earn a few kryts for themselves by selling the ores to blacksmiths.
The levels below that were controlled by the town lord and only miners hired by the town lord's castle were allowed to mine there. It was heavily guarded and restrictions were placed to keep it safe.
Below that again was the level that was said to be owned by the grandmaster. Those mines were deep into the ground and only the grandmaster was said to be able to survive deep in there as there was no air and the pressure was enough to kill normal people.
Even if someone tried to sneak to those lower mines and was successful, the environment itself was capable of killing them.
Three ore veins were crossing the mine which made it very large and very popular even in the entirety of Gorm. Many miners came there to try their luck. If they got some high-quality ore, they could strike it rich.
But the mines weren't all safe though. Because of the high quality and quantity of the ores, some mole-like beasts called Jebers infested the area.
Jebers were over a meter long and walked on all fours. They had armored scales all over their body and sharp, heavy claws. They had no eyes but seemed to possess multiple organs responsible for hearing. Due to this, they were very sensitive to sound and were also very territorial.
They had a large mouth with teeth like grinders which they used to chew up ore and also miners. Ores were the main source of food for jebers but they were omnivorous beasts and wouldn't pass up a juicy miner when they felt their territory was being threatened.
And because they gave birth with alarming frequency, they had to be frequently culled and miners would usually hire mercenaries to protect them as they mined. This created an ecosystem for money to flow.
At this point, Rastel and Roxanne had reached the outskirts of the mine which looked like a giant had scooped out a fistful of earth from the ground.
The mine was really just a large hole in the ground with various entrances leading into it. Some of the entrances were guarded by soldiers from Eadon but the rest were free. And all around, you could see mercenaries fighting ferociously with the tenacious jebers.
"This is amazing!" Rastel was excited.
He was already itching to go forward and fight a jeber. What was an adventure game without killing monsters?
"Only you would say that." Roxanne rolled her eyes.
"Don't worry. When you start fighting them, you will see just how terrifying these jebers are." She said with a sneer.
Rastel just laughed.
"It doesn't matter. I have you here to protect me don't I? I will be relying on you, super expert miss." He decided to bootlick a little.
Roxanne knew what he was doing but just chuckled instead.
"It is good you know." Then she started leading the way.
"By the way, where is the dungeon entrance? I can't really tell." Rastel asked her as he looked around.
Roxanne pointed at a set of mine entrances that seemed to be a bit more crowded than the rest.
"You see those tunnels over there? When we get closer to them, you will receive an alert from the system." She pointed out to him.
Rastel was excited and kept on looking forward to the dungeon.
Both of them didn't notice that multiple eyes from all over the mine were frequently looking in their direction.