Evolution: A Warlock's Rise To Power

The group gathered in a guard house near the center of the town. The third story had collapse onto the street, but the first floor stood firm and the second acted as a roof.

Hellfire and Calder found a furnace and smithy that was still in good condition. They managed to pick up a good amount of ore that was left behind.

Madlad, Van, and Lucy found the magic district. The magical research facility still had a few alchemy recipes laying around.

Will and Cheese obtained a handful of rusted weapons whose potential couldn't be determined by the inexperienced eyes present and a crossbow that was in excellent conditions. But no ammunition was found.

Silent was the real winner so far, having obtained a pet, her findings had been the greatest.

Lisel was stirring a pot over a fire. "Let's eat up, get some rest then head towards the dungeon."

She served out vegetable soup to everyone. Lisel had accumulated a good amount of experience with her profession as a chef. Lucan discovered several buffs after eating her meal. His rest time was cut from 4 hours to 30 minutes. He also had the well fed perk, allowing him to gain an extra 2% experience for the next 12 hours.

Everyone slept in the guard house. Adrestia and a few other pets stayed awake and patrolled around the guard house just to be safe. Lisel had a pet shadow, Hellfire had an imp, and Will brought out an adolescent wolf. None of the pets compared to the 100 butterflies that scattered through the city.

When they woke up well rested, they headed out of the city and into the Goblin Plains.

"Lucan, you can use this chance to help you level. On Raze's map, the Goblin Planes are level 30-80." Lisel said. "Silent, the experience for you will be minimal unless they are level 80."

"Lucan can level with our pet's." Will said while calling his wolf.

Silent started snickering.

"Ah, I didn't mean it in a bad way." Will said apologetically.

"I know, don't worry about. I chose to have Raze take away 102 levels and send me back to 0. You don't have to be polite about my level."

"Damn, you must have made a killing in banked experience." Hellfire said.

"Yeah, but that damn bastard charge me a million experience for the Spell weaver companion class, that was with my discount. And that was also when my level was 0. And now I only have 9 and a half months left in the game to get my level back to 100 or I lose my position as Hand. I haven't even had time to put a single point into Adrestia. It's all a scam, 'Here take this really cool pet as a reward but oh wait you can't spend anything on it for a year if you want to keep your position.' That old fart is the king of swindlers." Lucan stomped on the ground while going off on a tangent. Silent laughed at him while the others processed what they learned about him.

"We still need to be careful. There is a level 100 Elite Field Boss that spawns from time to time. There is no guarantee that we will see it, but its best to expect it to pop out at any moment." Lisel said.

Lucan lead the team forward while several pets accompanied him. The others lagged 200 feet back, so as to not attract the attention of the goblins Lucan and the pets were fighting.

The goblins were scattered across the plains. When one heard the sound of battle, it came running. The goblins were getting progressively stronger as they went. Lucan was currently fighting 8 level 50 goblins. The pet's made things doable for Lucan. The wolf was agile, its bite was strong, and its claws were fast. The Imp could cast magic, its small size made it hard to pin down. The formless shadow did a slow damage over time effect to any hostile creature it touched. The Butterflies would focus on a target by itself, swarming and eating everything bit of flesh they could find.

The pets helped left Lucan to cast as he pleased. When his mana would start running low his wand would transform into a black dagger. He would hack, slash and stab his way through the goblins until his mana was restored. Lucan had no problem fighting for hours straight.

After 4 hours they had crossed the plains. When the goblins level 65 and higher started to show, the ranged damage dealers began to help out. Lisel, Hellfire and Lucy started to pick off goblins just to speed things along. If they left it all to Lucan and the pets, it would have taken them another 4 hours.

Lucan sat down to catch his breath. He checked his experience bar to find he still had half a level till he was 49. He hoped the dungeon wouldn't be too ridiculous. If he could reach level 50 that would be awesome, but it was going to be extremely hard to make contributions to the team when he was 70ish levels lower than most of the people here.

They made it across the plains without encountering the Field Boss.

"Let's move on quickly." Lisel said after Lucan caught his breath.

The plains ended on the edge of a canyon. They did not plan to go down, but across. Several islands hung in the air above the canyon. Rope bridges gave a path to cross. They had seen enough movies to have only 1 person to go across at a time.

Each island was a quarter mile of earth floating in the air. The islands were empty except for scattered rocks and grass covering the ground. Up ahead they could see a large island floating over the center of the canyon, floating higher than the rest.

There were no rope bridges connected to their destination. Only large chains connected to several different islands to keep it from floating up into space.

They stood at the connecting point of a chain 8 feet wide. They couldn't see what was on the island since they were located below it. They started to climb up the chain together with Calder leading the group. It would be best for him to crest the edge first, incase there was any immediate danger, he would have the best chance of shrugging it off.

Traversing the floating islands and now climbing a chain up to another island in the sky gave Lucan a great feeling of anticipation. In each person's chest was a ball of excitement, hope, and nervousness. Their immediate future held great danger and opportunity. 1 by 1 the 10 adventurers stood firm on the large island in the sky.

They were surprised to see nothing at all on the island that was a mile wide.

"Hmm. Let's take a look around." Lisel said. It wasn't to long until they found something in the center of the island.

A flight of 13 stairs went down into the earth and stopped at a set of double doors.

"This should be the dungeon." Lisel said, cautiously taking the first step down. She stood before the doors without issue. The others followed. "Let's take a look." She said, opening the door.

[You have entered a 'Territory Dungeon'.]

[Death in a Territory Dungeon will not result in a loss of experience. You will be teleported outside the entrance of the dungeon and cannot re-enter until the dungeon re-opens. Others will not be permitted to enter the dungeon while the dungeon is occupied. To overcome the dungeon, 'Conquer' the territory by defeating Lord Mentas. When the dungeon is cleared. All citizens with neutral or friendly standings will be able to follow you to your territory inside the Eldritch Battleground.]

"Ah! A recruitment dungeon!" Hellfire exclaimed.

"We can fix up our city." Lisel added.

They stood on a dirt road leading into a small village. Behind the village sat a manor on a hill. First glances indicated that was where the Lord lived. Dark clouds hung in the sky giving the day a depressed feel. The group started to walk down the road to the village. There were people working fields, a few would glance at them but most paid the group of 10 no attention.

As they passed through, they listened to the stories of any of the citizens willing to talk to them. They spent several hours talking to anybody willing while trying to make sure these people didn't hate them.

The group came back together to consolidate the information they gathered. "We have learned the Lord Mentas came to this village a year ago. He has been taking the citizens and experimenting on them. They are defenseless and have no choice but to obey. They wrote letters to the outside, but no help has ever come. The only people who visit, work for Lord Mentas. It sounds like he is a warlock, which would make sense for the Eldritch Battleground. The villagers believe his powers lay in mental magic but that could be just the beginning." Hellfire said.

"Let me make a meal at this inn, then we can get some sleep and go at it fresh."

Everyone agreed with Lisel and the Inn keeper was thrilled to have guests.