785 T.D.o.N.B: Explorer, part I
I was excited to go out there and revisit all the places that I used to clear so religiously to get all the points to become as strong as possible.
I began with the goblin side, starting in the canyon to get rid of the orcs. Then I headed towards the territory of harpies. The next pitstop after that one was the giants, but as I soon learned, the dome was ending just after the canyon, which brought me to search for ogres. The cave was where I remembered it to be.
I cleared that place, then switched to the swamps. I cleared the undead and began looking for the next spot. It made me notice that things were slightly different in that part of the world. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the influence of others on the device, or because of my memories not being as good about the swamps themselves, but as I soon discovered, there was a damn pirate ship for some reason crashed in the shallow water.
Something which definitely didn’t exist in Arc.
I explored id killing the zombie sailors covered in coral. They all were wearing proper captain’s hats and had cutlasses by their side, which they immediately used on me when I showed up. Obviously with terrible effects, because I did hit them back.
Inside the ship there was a hole made by a sharp stone, protruding from the ground, which tore the bottom of the vessel open. Under that stone was hidden an entrance to the underground system of caverns.
It was wet and smelled terrible. Not to mention the fact that it was dark.
I ended up spawning a lot of firebirds to get rid of the darkness. Too bad it didn’t get rid of the water on the floor. For that particular problem, I used ‘Control water’ to clear the path for myself, and began exploring.
It was totally different experience from my previous exploration. I wasn’t afraid of what I might encounter. You could say that I was reckless in my approach, if not for the fact that I was ridiculously strong, and there was absolutely nothing there that could do anything to me.
Deeper I found more grotesque undead creatures with parts of the ship in their bodies. Some had cannons for legs, or a ship’s steering wheels jabbed in their torso. They were slightly stronger.
Even deeper, before the door leading to the boss I encountered a bunch of hooded mages. Clearly also dead, judging by the wrinkly yet slim hands. The skin was completely grey. I couldn’t see their faces under the deep hoods, but I also wasn’t really curious about that.
I tore them apart before approaching the boss’s room. As per usual it was behind the same door with the world tree symbol on it. I pushed it open, revealing, to my surprise, a quite cozy room.
The light inside was provided by iron bowls filled with burning oil, placed on frames in every corner of the square chamber. The floor was covered by nice dark marble plates, with slightly brighter veins.
There was also a red carpet stretched on the floor between the entrance and a throne of pure gold, on the other side of that very room. Next to it, resting leaning against the wall was a freaking anchor.
The sitting spot was occupied by a big boy. The boss obviously. Some form of a giant, but not as big as the guys who ruled over the mountains in Arc.
He was dressed in proper clothing. Black vest with a dark green coat on top of it. He had a long grey beard, but the hair was hidden under a hat,w which matched his coat in terms of coloration.
He immediately stood up, grabbing the anchor. Clearly intending to use it as a weapon.
As he did that, I noticed that his skin was also grey, and his eyes looked like he couldn’t see with them, but in the end, he was still just a creation of the sapling, so even things that didn’t really have a sense, were working.
Before he was able to attack me, I jumped forward, punching him so hard that the whole room shook, the throne got completely trashed, and a little bit of black smoke was left of him.
I picked up the crystal and evacuated, heading to check what was new in the, now officially called dragon region.
I cleared the iron fort, which was a spot that existed beyond the jungle. Then searched even further. What I found was a burned forest. There was no fire, but the trees were completely black. I touched one and it just completely shattered as it became charcoal.
Slightly further I found the first monsters. Fat lizards, brown in coloration, with big scales covering their backs. They were smooth and shiny, which made me think about making armor out of their skins. Obviously, it wasn’t possible, since they would turn into smoke before I could do anything, but this little idea was enough for one of them to spot me and puke a stream of fire at me.
It achieved completely nothing, as that much head was unable to harm me in any way. Well, maybe it did achieve something. I got slightly pissed. After all, such an attack seemed like complete disrespect toward a freaking fire mage, who could summon a volcano.
For a second I even considered doing that, just to show that creature who is the boss, but then I got back to my senses.
That thing wasn’t even thinking. It was a puppet. A vessel to hold the crystal for me. So instead of doing stupid things, I did smart things and pulled the birthday pudao from my vault, which started the slaughter. It ended when I found an entrance to the underground layer of those monsters.
It looked like a tunnel dug into the ground. I entered it without hesitation.