NOVEL NEXT Chapter 40: Oar
Lucan and Silent took out Return scrolls to skip the day and a half of travel back to Shadowsweep. With 30 seconds of channeling and reading the scrolls they were in Shadowsweep's graveyard. After returning to his home Lucan was informed that the transfer point was up and running. The craftsman successfully used it to return home.
Alasan informed Lucan that Renia, the draconian women, came to him with an interest to form an official guard force to protect the village. Many in her hunting party and the others were willing to join under her. Lucan gave the okay for them to form together.
Lucan now had to find a way to pay and equip these people. Right now, they wanted volunteer in order to keep their home safe. But Lucan couldn't take advantage of their kindness forever. They began the long walk to Avalon while Lucan enhanced the tunnel.
In Avalon, Lucan went to the wand shop to sell off his creations and restock on supplies. He restocked on potions and rations. With a handful of gold coins still in his pocket Lucan visited a tailor and spent 30 gold on a set of bigger bags that could each hold 20 more items than his current set.
Silent poked her head into a few stores to get what she needed. She had every inch of herself covered except where her 2 eyes shone through. After restocking, Lucan went searching for Glen in the research department. Unfortunately, his doors were locked. A note hung on the door about an ongoing experiment. He may not be out for weeks.
Lucan left. Silent and him decided to swing by the Assassins guild. Seeing as how they had made up 4,200 of his direct 4,500 followers, it was a good idea to pop in even if he didn't pick up a contract.
Lucan and Silent walked in, the bar was crowded while several more people were in line to get contracts.
Poison Master was drinking alone at a table. Lucan saw him and gave him a nod. Poison Master returned the nod and raised his glass. They didn't say anything else.
SuperSleuth was still in the Shadow realm. One of his employees was working the information desk. Super understood business and recognized his position. All his information dealers also suggested a pact with Super. Lucan gained followers and Super got a cut. His people were a spread-out organization and both Lucan and Super's influence were growing because of it. Super had signed over half the followers Lucan had.
He chuckled. Super had been very busy whereas Silent still hadn't spent a single point and didn't have a single follower.
Lucan and Silent took a seat at a table that just emptied and ordered a couple drinks. Silent Night, or Longshot, would talk to anybody who get near them. Most of the people here were Lucan's followers. Which meant everyone was rather polite and pleasant. The atmosphere was a bit strange for a cruddy bar inside a guild of assassins.
Silent talked for a few hours while Lucan chatted with a couple people that had honest questions about the power available to them.
At the end of the day Lucan and Silent picked up a couple of gold level contracts ranging from level 50 to 90. They were bounties for assassinations, and a few were to take out small groups. They stuck to just going after evil NPCs they didn't want to risk becoming red named characters and dying before the qualifying event, that would be multiple levels gone in an instant.
***
"That was our last contract." Lucan said as he climbed out of the slave trader's basement. The slaver hideout was on the outskirt of a small city. Lucan had spent an hour to set up a sound canceling formation around the building. Lucan and Silent had been free to move through the slavers without restrictions. No one would be coming to help them, and the telekinetic walls were two way. With the amount of mental mana infused into the formation, nobody even had the opportunity to escape.
It took an hour to set up because Lucan didn't use his flags. The positive was that he lost nothing by leaving it behind. When they left it would take at least 18 hours before anyone could get inside and see what happened.
Lucan led out a dozen NPCs that had been slaves. Silent and Lucan escorted them to the transfer point and paid for them to go wherever they wanted. Soon only one remained. A young boy around 16.
"Where do you want to go?"
"I… I don't have anywhere to go."
"Hmm, alright. Umm…" Lucan looked to Silent not knowing what to do.
"I know a place where you can go. It will be an exciting adventure in another realm." Silent said. "Lucan is the Lord of a small village. You can come live there. Everybody is nice and they don't mind teaching you what they know if you help out. It is a great place to begin again."
"Is that alright?" The young boy shyly looked towards Lucan.
"It is perfect. The village is made up of people that don't have homes."
If they went now Lucan and Silent could get him back and return in time to meet up with Madlad and the others. Soon they were on the return trip home.
"So what's your name?" Silent asked.
"I'm Oar."
"Nice to meet you. What's your favorite color?" Silent pestered him all the way to Shadowsweep. When they arrived, Alasan was waiting to greet Oar. Lucan and Silent turned around. Lucan kept enhancing the Tunnel every time he passed through. 5% of each pass was starting to add up. He had already shaved off over 2 and a half hours off the travel time.
Lucan and Silent met up with Vanslaughterfest, Lucy and Madlad at a tavern when they returned to Avalon.
Lucy was the first to start talking. "Today is the first day of the qualifier." She said. "So, it will take some time to find out if we get in. It will be hard for use to qualify but I think it is still worth a shot."
"What is the party event?"
"We thought this would be a good one given your formation abilities." Madlad said. "We face and endless horde, we will be given an hour to build a defense. We will get points based on kills plus the points for how long we are able to last. We will die in this instance, but we don't lose any experience. It means the horde probably won't give much experience individually, but it should add up if we do well. The event is called 'Endless Horde'. We won't get any more information until we enter."
"All though we are mostly single target damage I think we still have a chance." Van said. "Especially if we end it with your self-destruct. That will give us a good bump."
"I can give you 2 self-destructs, but the explosion won't be able to tell friend from foe."
"If it comes down to it, try to save your Shadow Form so you can run away at the last moment." Silent added.
Lucan nodded. "My level will be higher by the time of the competition if we manage to qualify. For now, I will give you formations and explosions."
"Good, everyone, work your hardest today." Madlad said.
He then passed out the tokens he had received with the qualification notice. Since Source creations had no direct control over the world in Evolution, players had to use these tokens to transport to an auxiliary realm where the qualifying instances were located.