Equestria Legends Online: Brothers

by 4428Gamer

A Short Trip to the Crypt

Sardinexx’s POV

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The five of us, myself and Siren along with King and his friends, traversed across the cemetery. King’s crossbowmen were the only ones flying and they were taking shots at whatever zombie was getting close by while King simply stabbed any zombie in our way.

Because of his threat, I silently reminded Siren to stay calm. The entire time she looked ready to take King’s head off, probably in a literal sense, but this wasn’t an argument anymore. We had to take what he said seriously. King proved as such when he went after Kal.

Where King’s head was in all of this didn’t matter. He was mad enough to kill Kal in cold-blood. Although while we walked King hadn’t said a word. Instead he was using a deep breathing exercise to calm down. Even he believed his anger went above what was acceptable.

The thugs around us I could not bother to care about. I assumed they were complicit in everything since they didn’t object. If they would have said or done something before I might have considered who they were in all of this.

After what felt like an hour, we crossed the cemetery and continued up the center of seven paths. Every monster around us was dispatched, allowing us to observe this large mausoleum overlooking the foggy landscape.

We couldn’t see any of the other tombs or paths but I had assumed every building in this grave was in disrepair. That’s what one would expect from a haunted graveyard. And the few MMOs I played before always followed that gimmick. That only made the mausoleum more ominous as a result.

Wrapped by a tall, eight foot brick wall, the building and the surrounding yard was seemingly untouched by whatever destroyed the graveyard. As we passed through these immaculate iron gates that had been left wide open, we took in everything the place offered.

The grass was no longer patchy and dead but instead plush and bright green. Large trees dotted the space with browning leaves on every branch and at the base of each of them were friendly bushes. Up against the western side of the wall was a small pond with lily pads and cattails growing along the edge.

Then standing above it all was the mausoleum; regal in its beauty. Not one sign of age or decay anywhere on the building. The carvings and designs etched into the structure were in perfect condition. Even the plants growing along the outer walls appeared full of life.

The beacon of untouched land made it seem all the more offsetting. I couldn’t tell why but I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was incredibly wrong. It was like this mausoleum was a beast with an uncanny human grin begging you to come closer.

The entrance was a set of stone steps leading up to the landing where a massive archway was the only way inside. Rather than a set of doors, the archway was clear save for this magical transparent barrier that coated the entrance with swirling lights of green and silver.

Inside the building was the makings of a small church with rows of pews facing a stage with no podium. The inside was as clean as the outside.

“Here we are,” King presented, walking to the base of the steps and turning around to face us. He still looked and sounded frustrated but those breathing exercises seemed to have helped him recover from the rage he had before.

The two crossbowmen landed nearby with both of them aiming their weapons on us. I was reminded all over again how fragile my 1 HP was.

“According to the beta-testers, everyone’s supposed to avoid this place. Too risky, they say.” King took a moment to watch the aura around the entrance before looking at us.

“Get in.”

“What?” I blinked. “You can’t be—”

King cleared his throat and the crossbows were aimed more strictly on me. “We’re done talking.”

Siren started to stomp towards him with some sudden confidence but I quickly held her back. “Siren. Stop. NOW.”

She was trembling in fury as she stared back at King who was slowly finding humor in this. Before either of them said anything only we would regret, Siren shook me off and instead changed her path. She walked past King and flew over the steps to the archway.

I knew better than to try asking King what the barrier would do. So instead, I walked up the steps and joined Siren at the top of the steps.

Siren and I shared a look before she elected to go first. Carefully, she brought a hoof to the barrier and watched as instead of making contact, her leg passed straight through. It was as if she put her hoof through a ray of sunlight.

Siren looked back at me for a moment and took a deep breath before stepping through the barrier.

“Yeah. It’s fine,” she answered. Maybe she wanted to keep me from asking in the first place.

“Great,” King cheered sarcastically as he turned to me. “Now hurry up.”

I closed my eyes and gathered what nerves I had before doing exactly that. There was nothing to feel as I did. I took a few steps, opened my eyes, and I was inside.

“Alright. We’re done here.” King turned back to his friend who still had the crossbow on me. “You can put the bow down. It’s a waste of ammo.”

“Now it’s a waste of ammo?!” Siren shouted, her rage bubbling over.

“Siren, you need to—”

“No. I don’t care anymore!” She shouted. “If we’re dying anyways, let the sad baby do it! I’d rather see him get another mark on his precious crystal! At least Kal dying branded that loser for what he did!”

“Don’t say that,” I grabbed her shoulder. “Don’t talk as if Kal’s death was a good thing. You don’t price death.”

“I’m not saying Kal dying was a good thing!” she turned her anger to me for a moment. “I meant—” “I know what you meant! But I’m not letting you say that either.”

King, who watched us with a sick smile, blinked. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, waaaaaait. Are you talking about this thing?” We turned back and watched King point at the mark beside his player gem.

“You said whoever killed a player gets branded with it,” Siren retorted. “You said it stays there.”

King stared back at her, seemingly confused as he thought back for a second. “Well, yeah. It stays for. Oh. Oh. Oh, you thought I meant permanently! No, no this isn’t permanent. You think I would do that if it was permanent?”

Siren’s seething anger suddenly simmered to a lukewarm.

“W-What?”

“No, this stupid thing’s only staying for a week,” he told us. “I’ll have to wait the dumb thing off, but...Meh.” He shrugged. “Until then I’ll have my friends go shopping for me with all the money you just gave us.”

“You. So Kal...What?” Siren started to walk forward without realizing it but one step later, after reaching the barrier, she smacked into it nose first and reeled back.

“Right. One last thing. The reason beta-testers said to avoid this place isn’t the huge boss lying around somewhere in there. It’s because you can’t leave! You either die or you beat the boss.”

I walked up and put a hoof on the barrier myself. As solid as rock. “You’re not coming in, are you?”

“Are you crazy?!” King almost laughed. “No one’s beaten that thing yet! And until everyone beside the betas find out about this place, no one’s going to even think about running up here. But don’t worry.” He rolled his eyes. “At least there’s no hunger system! So as long as you sit in there and don’t scream, like, for help for example, you’ll be fine for the next couple of weeks. Maybe.”

Siren let out a scream as she started punching the barrier with all the anger she possessed. All it did was make King laugh.

“Yeah, like that. Maybe if you listened to me,” King lamented. “Crowl. Jetter. Let’s clear some tombs and get out.”

“About that,” one of his friends spoke up. “There was another group of players before you. We didn’t want to jump out and ruin the ambush but they’re still here.”

King glanced over, obviously caught off guard. “Really? How strong were they?”

“Not,” the other thug dismissed. “There’s four. Three level sixes and a four.”

“Pfft. Level four? Wow.” King chuckled. “Alright. Let’s track ‘em down. I’ll stick by the entrance. You two do a once over of the tombs. They probably got told about this place like us so if they’re smart they won’t come here.”

“And if they do?” I asked.

King shot a glare at me for an instant but quickly shrugged. “Then they find out about you, I still catch them, and we throw them in with you. Either way, be grateful. You two won’t be alone for long.”

“Screw off,” Siren spat, her voice cracking.

“That’s the plan. See ya.”

King turned around and started walking away with the two pegasi players following him. None of them bothered to look back at us. And as I watched them leave, Siren had whatever frustration spill from her as she started to trudge further inside towards one of the pews.

I stayed watching as they left. When they were through the gates, King instructed his friends to close them for good measure. Once that was done, one of the goons shoved some mud into the clasp on top of it all before they split off into the cemetery.

I waited for another ten or so seconds and then scanned the sky for any signs of the pegasi before taking a breath.

Here goes nothing, I guess.

“They’re gone now,” I spoke, making sure my voice didn’t carry out to alert the three. “Are you out there? Please, give me a sign if. You’re..."

I trailed off when my attention settled on the bushes. One of them were rustling for a second as a couple of leaves fell to the ground.

“...Hello?” I called out again.

“can we go check?” “no. wait on her.”

I looked around, desperate. The bushes stopped moving, The pond was too far away to observe and the tree had too many leaves to see anything in them. There was nothing there.

Until I watched the mud in the gate’s clasp fall away.

At first I thought the mud fell off from the idiot not trying hard enough but no. The more I watched, the more mud kept flicking away. Then I saw a small globule of it flicked away.

“Who’s there?” I tried again. I spoke quieter than before but it had to be loud enough to reach the gate.

No one said anything in return. Instead, the mud stopped moving and there was silence again.

Someone’s here. Someone’s got to be here. I turned back to look at Siren. She was lying down on a pew keeping her head out of sight. She either couldn’t hear me talking to myself or didn’t care. I let her have her peace for now.

“Come on, please,” I kept talking. “We need help. We’re trapped in here and—”

“And we heard the whole thing. You can stop.”

The voice came from somewhere ahead of me but I couldn’t see anybody. After another moment I started to hear someone climbing the steps leading up to me.

“Where are you?”

“Invisible,” the voice answered. It sounded female and uncertain. “What that guy with the spear and axe said. Did he really kill someone?”

My throat grew tight and I forced myself to keep my emotions down. “Yes. He killed one of our group. He threw us in here so he wouldn’t have to kill us. He’s not going to. To let you...”

“Leave?” She finished. She almost sounded amused. “I don’t think he’d notice.”

Right. He wouldn’t see her. I glanced around. “His friend said there were four of you. Are your friends nearby?”

“Been here the whole time,” she explained. Then there was a sigh. “And it looks like I’m about to show up.”

What does that mean?

I heard steps on the stonework for a second and then another moment of silence. “Coast’s as clear as it gets. Come out. Quietly.”

All at once, players started to show up. From the tree branches a pegasus with a black coat and dull yellow hair carefully glided in spirals down the tree with a small blue unicorn in his arms. As they landed I noticed Lv. 4 E1ectric_B1itz showing up above the pegasus and Lv. 6 Light_Chill above the small unicorn.

Then, from my right I heard steps as someone walked into view from the right. I vaguely recall seeing columns around the landing between the steps and archway and as a tall, white-coated unicorn with pink hair walked into view, I realized that was probably where she had come from. Lv. 6 F1eur_de_7is was displayed above her.

Finally, as the pegasus and small unicorn joined the white unicorn on the landing, the fourth player turned visible between the three of them. It was a gray-coated Earth pony with a long cloak that covered the top half of her face and body. The words Lv. 6 GrayMatt3rsxxx appearing above her.

“Blitz and Chill,” the woman in front of me spoke. “For now, only use our usernames, alright?”

“I already do that Gray,” ‘Chill’ said with a nod.

She sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

All of them, save for the small unicorn, had armor of some sort. The pegasus had heavy plate armor with a large club on his back, the cloaked player had black leather armor but that was all I saw on her, and the tall unicorn had regular leather armor with a longbow and quiver equipped. All the small unicorn had was a buckler and some sort of weird wand.

Only usernames. She doesn’t trust us. Smart woman, I figured.

“You guys really are trapped in there, huh?” The pegasus ‘Blitz’ asked.

“How can we help?” Chill asked, stepping closer.

“Chill, stop.” Gray pulled him away before he could get too close. “Right now we’re asking questions.”

“But you said there’s a boss monster in there. This guy only has, like, one health.”

“I do have one health,” I corrected. Then I furrowed my brow. “Hold on. Are you a child?”

Chill had it dawn on him the attention he had and he backed up further and hid behind the Blitz guy.

“All three of them are children,” Gray said. “Two teenagers but same difference.”

“Right here ya know,” Blitz shot back. “Fleur? Garde, s'il vous plaît?” He pointed out towards the gate and ‘Fleur’ nodded, pulling out her bow in her magic and walking over to position herself against the wall near the gate.

Not the best position but not a bad idea, I noted.

“Here, let me add you as a friend.” Blitz opened his menu. “After we do that, I can gift you a potion.”

I looked back up at my HP bar and let out a dry chuckle. “Yeah, that’d be great. But, before that.”

Sardinexx: 1/236 *
KingDingBing: 195/195 *
Siren_t@le: 113/147 *

That’s what I saw with my HP bar. The murderer already used one of our potions to top himself off. I decided to open up my menu as Blitz worked and quickly booted King from our group. Not only did I want nothing to do with him but if he saw me suddenly go up in HP, he would immediately know where these kids were.

I worked my way towards the friend’s list to block him too only to get a message from the man in question.

From: KingDingBing

Awww cant b n group nymor?

‘FU’ the only effort I bothered to type before shutting the friend list. As much as I hated it, if he sent any more messages he might give something away. Maybe slip out if he was coming back. Then I could warn these four.

After I accepted Blitz’s friend request, he quickly sent me another notice.

E1ectric_B1itz sends a gift!

1 Health Potion

Do you accept?

-Yes
-No

I hit ‘Yes’ and quickly got the potion out to chug it down. It was the best care package I had ever gotten.

“What was the guy’s username?” Gray asked, opening up her own menu. “I want to make sure I spell it right.”

“KingDingBing,” I recited. “Unicorn. Level nine. Primarily uses a spear and shield. He called his friends Crowl and...and I can’t remember the other one. Sorry.”

“He said Jetter,” Gray answered. “Jetter’s username was exactly that; Jetter. I think that’s enough for me to work with.” When she traversed her menu a little more I saw that she had it open to a keyboard and she started typing rapidly.

“Are you reporting him?” I blinked.

She blew a raspberry. “Like that’d do anything. Admins can’t see it even if they could do something. I’m doing much worse.”

Chill looked over her shoulder and gasped a little. “Oh, the Octopus guy! How’s he gonna help?”

“He knows a lot of the other Sellers,” Gray answered vaguely. “If he knows that player killer’s name, he'll track down whoever talked to this King guy and warn them to stay far away. Plus, he and the Sellers can spread word about the player killer. That mark on his account will be the least of his problems.”

“...Player killer, huh?” Blitz breathed. “Now I regret every game I ever did that in.”

“Listen, you four need to be careful,” I told them. “Even if she can sneak by, they’re searching for you. They have two pegasus players searching the tombs now.”

Gray paused her typing for a second and shook off what I said. “I know.”

“Can the Octopus guy come help us?” Chill looked between everyone.

“No,” Blitz answered for Gray. “They won’t come. Even if they did, they wouldn’t come here so close to nightfall.”

I frowned. “What happens at nightfall?”

“The zombies become a real threat,” Gray explained as she kept typing. “Instead of limping, they start running. They gain more HP and strength too. Still no money or experience.”

“Skeletons too,” Blitz added. “Which means those pegasus players will start getting shot at.”

“They might just leave at that point,” I offered. “That’s your best chance to get out.”

“But what about you?” Chill frowned. “Wouldn’t the zombies be a problem for you too?”

I gave the kid a brave smile. Something I had gotten good at back in the real world. “Zombies won’t get in here. The gate’s closed. We’ll be fine.”

“You’re still trapped with a boss monster in there,” Gray tossed out numbly.

I narrowed my eyes. “I was trying to cheer the kid up.”

“It wasn’t working,” Chill bluntly stated. But he was trying to give me a smile to cheer me up. “Thank you though, sir.”

That actually made me smile for real. “Good kid,” I told him.

“We don’t have much time,” Blitz informed us. “We got here thinking we’d only have to check the tombs. We can’t get out before nightfall now.”

Gray moved her hoof up and down, reading over her email a few times to be sure she wrote what she needed. “Okay. That’s all I can really tell him. Hopefully Oct will take it from there.” She hit send and closed out her menu.

“Gray? What are we doing?” Blitz looked at her. “Because you know what Jo...Chill wants to do. And...I’m kind of agreeing with him.”

“You’re not serious,” she told him. “There’s no way we can take on that boss. We’re too low leveled.”

“Are they?” Chill pointed to me and, back in the mausoleum, Siren. “He’s level nine.”

“We’re both level nine,” I told them. “I don’t know what this boss is though.”

“Two level nines, three level sixes and me,” Blitz read out. “Six players. Depending on what it is, we might be able to cheese it.”

“No. There is no cheesing this,” Gray repeated. “The only time the beta testers beat that thing is when they were level ten. Four level tens. And one of them died before dying mattered.”

“But you know what it is, right?” Blitz challenged. “You walked us through every trap and monster in this place and I got hit once by a tomb monster. Not to mention we have so much loot from the tombs we already hit. We have enough to equip them and us.”

“Blitz, listen. It is suicide,” Gray told him. “You don’t even know how hard it is.”

“I know that sneaking out of here is going to be just as hard,” he reminded her. “And I’m more scared of player killers than an undead monster. Besides, we spend all this time getting out of here and then what? More wolves? Maybe another Cragadile? We’ll be exhausted. But if we help these guys survive a boss? That’s four of us and two level nines. We stomp past the zombies, the goons will back off, and timberwolves will mean nothing.

“This is our best bet. And honestly? I can’t walk away from two people locked in a death house,” Blitz concluded. “Not after being stuck here for a week.”

“Same,” Chill added simply, raising his hoof.

Gray looked between the two kids, trying to come up with a way to shoot them down.

“Kids. You’re no—” “Don’t feel like you have to.”

From behind me, Siren slowly wandered back wearing her typical stern gaze as before. “You’re kids, right? It’s your choice. You’re not expected to jump in here after us. We’re the adults here. Sarge here is older than you two combined. We don’t want kids dying just to try keeping us alive. That’s backwards thinking if you ask me.”

I watched Chill’s expression turn more depressed the longer Siren talked. He heard the same thing in her voice I was hearing. The only thing helping her hide it was that her eyes weren’t red and puffy. The game couldn’t simulate the result of emotion on an avatar.

“...Fine then,” Blitz said. Then he shoved his way past Gray and into the barrier.

“Wha—Alex?!” Gray shouted, her entire mask shattering at once.

“Aww, I was gonna do that first,” Chill whined, walking past the stunned Gray and into the barrier after him. “Now I look like I’m only doing it ‘cause you’re doing it.”

Siren, whose jaw was loosely hanging from her face, stuttered for a second. “Kids. I said that to make you leave. You were supposed to choose to leave us here.”

“Really?” Chill leaned his head to the side. “I thought you were trying to say that so we wanted to. Not because we had to.”

“I knew what she was hinting at but it would have just made me feel scummier,” Blitz, or Alex apparently, admitted. “Either way; didn’t work lady.”

Siren glanced over at me for a second before looking back at Gray. “Is this what you’re stuck with?”

“Thank you,” Gray returned. “Day one wasn’t bad. This is day two and it’s, like, the fifth time dealing with something like this.”

Siren giggled miserably. “Oh, dear, your pain.”

I stared back at her. “Did. Did you just giggle?”

Her frown came back like flipping a switch. “Yeah. So?”

“I’ve known you since the first day,” I told her. “The best you’ve done is smirk. Now you choose to be happy?”

“Hey Rachelle,” Blitz called out, earning Fleur’s attention. Then he waved her over. “Dépêchez!”

She looked over and when she noticed that Alex and the younger kid were in here with us, she slowly walked over with a look of bewilderment on her face.

“Que faites vous tous?”

“Oh right. Rachelle only knows French,” he told us. “We’ve been trying to work on that.”

I held the top of my head as if I was trying to take off a nonexistent hat. “How have you all survived this long?”

“Hard work and determination,” Blitz said with no sincerity.

“It’s our first day out of town,” Chill explained with more bluntness.

“Oh my God, we’re going to die,” Siren realized.

“Now you know my pain,” Gray told her. She quickly held out an arm before Fleur walked through the barrier. “Alex, at least tell her what fresh hell she’s walking into before she does it.”

“Danger, oui?” Fleur spoke, letting out a low sigh. “C'est toujours un danger.”

“Oui. Always danger,” Blitz confirmed. “Tu es bon?”

Fleur watched him for a moment and I almost expected her to roll her eyes or react negatively. Instead, I saw her eyes almost light up for a moment before she strolled up to the barrier and gingerly pressed through it. “Oui. Faisons le.”

Gray stared in utter disbelief. “It wasn’t just Joey, was it? All of you have gone bat crazy.”

Blitz looked to Fleur for a moment and slowly found himself shaking his head. “No. No, I think Rachelle might be an adrenaline junkie.”

“Adrénaline...” Fleur took a moment to consider it.

“Well Gray. Don’t feel like you have to run in too,” I told her. “That invisibility of yours can get you past King and everything else. You’re the one who can walk out unscathed.”

“Are you kidding?” She looked at me. “I can’t hide from packs of timberwolves on a five hour walk home. I actually don’t have a choice anymore.”

She slowly walked in, ignoring the barrier entirely. “Congrats Alex. You chose for us. At 5:30 we need to keep quiet. If we pull that off, we have until 7 PM until the boss smashes through the floor.”

Siren immediately found herself staring at the wood and tile flooring with more concern but Gray went on. “If you have any MMO plans, start talking.”

“I can help too,” I offered. “I’ve played some MMOs but, on top of that, I know tactics beyond just video games.”

“Perfect. You’re hired,” Blitz joked. “And Gwen? Tell us everything you know about this thing. Every detail you got.”

“Like I have a choice,” she breathed, walking further into the building. We all followed, approaching the stage ahead of the pews. Then we began to plot.

Author's Note:

I've always wondered, what's more unsettling? An old haunted tomb in a clean well-kept graveyard? Or a haunted graveyard with a single perfectly untouched tomb?

Either way, Gray/Gwen's already ruined the surprise; there's a monster in it's basement.

The next chapter will be some prep and then the fight itself. Although, while I'm here, I might as well bring up something about the story:

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Every time you see some random looking number for health or damage, I'm not actually making them up, per say. I've mentioned that I'm a huge Dungeons & Dragons nerd and because I can't go to game groups right now (pandemic and all) I have all of these multi-sided dice just going to waste. So I figured, why not roll for everything?

For anyone who's interested, I have all of those numbers on this Google Doc. They mean nothing and I come up with them whenever they're important. But, hey, sometimes people like looking at numbers so, here they are I guess.

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Weird number thing aside, I hope you all have enjoyed the story. I'll see you next chapter!

Cheers,
-Zeke

Comments

[Commissioner Sun]

The exciting chapter!