Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

[You have killed the boss ‘Stheno, the Oppressive Gorgon’. You have earned +90,000 XP].

Kaizen heard the slaughter message right after he stuck the stone spear into the middle of Stheno’s back.

[You have earned ‘Vial of Ancient Cursed Blood’ (1x).]

[You have earned ‘Scroll of Stheno’ (1x).]

[You have earned ‘Petrifying Eyes’ (1x).]

[You have earned ‘Ethereal Chains’ (10x).]

[You have earned ‘Gorgon’s Fang’ (2x).]

[You have earned ‘Snake Flesh’ (15x).]

[You have received ‘Stheno Gorgon’s Head’ (1x) for using the last hit on the boss, ‘Stheno, the Oppressive Gorgon’.]

[Congratulations! You have just reached level 60!]

[Congratulations! You have just reached level 61!]

[Congratulations! You have just reached level 62!]

[Congratulations! You have just reached level 63!]

[You have earned +100 Fame.]

Sheshhhh! I got a lot this time. I don’t think even when I killed the Centaur Druid boss, I got as many items as I did now. I really hope most of this stuff isn’t just junk, although just because I won the emblematic head of a gorgon, I’m sure it’s a huge prize. Kaizen thought as he looked at the list of items he had received.

Besides, Kaizen had managed to level up a lot and was happy about that, except that between looking at an accumulation of numbers and statistics and checking out what exactly the items he had just won were, he was obviously much more interested in the items because some of them could make a lot of money, others could be used to forge some weapon or armor, and maybe some of them could teach Kaizen more about this vast world of Rise Online.

The first item the Psyker wanted to check out of the price list was not the one at the top, as he had no interest in reading about this cursed ancient blood after a battle as bloody and disgusting as the one he had just fought. That being the case, he jumped to the next item on the list, the Scroll of Stheno.

As soon as Kaizen clicked on the item’s icon, a scroll appeared in front of him. This scroll did not have an aura like the ones he had seen in the Mage Library. On the outside, it appeared to be an ordinary scroll, but when Kaizen unwound the string and opened it, he saw that the inside of the scroll was scribbled with a large text filled with various bizarre and confusing symbols.

This was definitely not a normal scroll, as it was not written in any normal language. Fortunately, Kaizen was not a player like the others.

[Master of Languages title effect activated].

[You can now understand 30% of each language.]

[The language written in the Scroll of Stheno is simple, so you can understand 60% of it].

[Thanks to the Talented title, you can now understand 90% of this language].

Upon reading the beginning of the text, Kaizen quickly realized that this was not some kind of magic ritual, nor was it some kind of curse. From the first few paragraphs, he realized that this was a story, the story of the Gorgon Stheno. And to his surprise, her story was somewhat similar to that of the gorgon Medusa.

Stheno had once been a very beautiful and elegant young woman, with hair that always flew in the wind and with strands so silky and beautiful that they made all the women in town jealous.

Many women asked her the secret of how she kept her hair so beautiful and moisturized, and she always replied that she used only the aloe leaf, a plant that has a gel-like viscosity inside and has always been used for this purpose. Of course, since the use of aloe leaf was so common, the women didn’t believe that this was all Stheno used on her hair, and little by little the young woman began to be called a liar all over town.

Until one day, Stheno was attacked by a horde of wild animals as she walked along the shore of the lake. As usual, she was alone and knew she wouldn’t stand a chance against all those animals, so she jumped into the lake and tried to swim to safety on the other side.

However, she didn’t know that there were numerous sea serpents in the lake, and in her attempt to escape from the other wild animals in the forest, she walked into a nest of even more dangerous creatures.

Stheno managed to swim to the middle of the lake and soon saw that a group of women were having a picnic where she was swimming. She flapped her arms in the water and shouted for help, and managed to get them to notice her, but when the women saw that the person in the middle of the lake was Stheno, they turned their faces away and refused to help her, thinking that she was just trying to get attention.

Stheno was shocked by the women’s reaction, and at that moment a sea snake bit her ankle. Then another snake bit her left thigh and another bit her stomach.

This time, Stheno was paralyzed not only with fear, but also with pain. She put her head in the water for a moment and saw several other snakes swimming up from the bottom of the lake to attack her. Tired and almost without strength, Stheno raised her head to the surface of the lake again to call for help, but as soon as she looked in the direction where the women were, she saw that they were all walking away, laughing together.

At that moment, the kind-hearted Stheno felt an uncontrollable hatred, but this hatred was not directed at the women who had left her, but rather at herself and her damn perfect hair. She thought that even if her hair were poisonous snakes like the ones that bit her legs, people would like her that way more than they would like her with perfect hair.

At that moment, Stheno, weakened by the poison of the sea serpents, closed her eyes and wished deeply that she didn’t have such beautiful hair. And so some power, being, or playful god granted her wish and transformed her hair into living, agile snakes.

With the help of these snakes, Stheno somehow gained new vitality and was able to swim to the other side of the lake. After leaning on the grass at the edge of the lake for a few seconds, she heard the sound of the snakes themselves, now forming her hair.

Stheno ran her fingers between the bodies of her hair, feeling the scaly skins of the snakes. At that moment, she couldn’t believe that what she was feeling was real, so she approached the edge of the lake and looked at her own reflection in the azure water.

At that moment, Stheno saw herself as a Gorgon, a woman with hair made of snakes. Contrary to what one might expect, she smiled with happiness, for this meant that she could finally make friends. But as she hurried back to the city, she realized that the fulfillment of her wish was not a miracle, but a curse. As soon as she looked at the first person, she was petrified. The same thing happened when she looked to her left and saw a curious child approaching. The child turned into a perfect little statue.

From that moment on, Stheno began to run around the city in desperation, and just like before, all the men and women looked at her, only unlike before, the looks were not of lust and envy, but of fear, and these expressions were forever etched in not only Stheno’s memory. She quickly became a feared and hated creature, and realizing that she could not stay in the city, she decided to isolate herself.

She moved to a hidden place in the middle of the forest and began to live there, isolated from the world. As the weeks and months passed, she received many visits from warriors seeking revenge for the dozens of people she had victimized in the city.

Stheno became frightened by the visitors and began to use her petrifying eyes to defend herself, killing many warriors in the process. However, she didn’t want to go on doing this, so she exiled herself away from everyone’s eyes, into very old ruins where no one could find her.

The story goes that Stheno continued to receive many visitors even then, and since she was very attached to her own life, she killed anyone who tried to kill her. With the passage of dozens of years and hundreds of dead adventurers, she gradually lost her humanity and took on a form that more and more resembled that of a beast.

Kaizen read the scroll to the end, and with a sigh, he placed the item in his backpack. He was thoughtful as he read the story, for the lesson he took from it was that many people stop thinking for themselves and focus on the expectations and desires of others instead of their own aspirations and quality, and this was something Kaizen needed to remember as it had been very important to his growth as a professional player in the past.

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[Boss: Stheno the Oppressive Gorgon

Level: 50 | Attribute: Poisonous and Magic | Nature: Epic

HP: 3.000 | MP: 1200

Attack: 450 | Defense: 219 | Speed: 333

Strength: 200 | Wisdom: 97 | Stamina: 183

Resistance to: Poison, Water and Wind].

…

Edited by: DrHitsuji𝐎𝐯𝑙xt.𝓬𝒐𝓂

If you want to see original illustrations of Rise Online characters, consider helping me on pa treon: Pa treon.com/NandoFalske

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