Chapter 67: Campfire Talk


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    “Yes, hello?” Her voice sounded like crap, this early in the morning. “Good morning Janette, it is me Marcus.”, her brain only slowly processed the sounds that came out of


    Marcus did not make it back to the HQ until noon next day and as he walked into the estate he could see Achara training hard with Grace. She is already here, Marcus thought. He stopped and watched the two women and it was clear that Grace was pushing Achara hard. Basic training, sword fighting, nothing fancy but Grace seemed to have a problem with basically


    “Oh she loves it. She finally


    “Hungry?” Kou asked with a smile, Marcus


    “I will concentrate on developing Carapace from the ground up. That also means I will need some help.” he explained. Grace and Janette looked far too eager to “help”, for his liking. Besides that, Marcus was happy to see how well Grace integrated into the clan. Candis acted as a natural counter weight to the rough girls and as long as she was around they behaved quite well.


    A


    From her point of view she got far too much credit for the


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    As the clock ticked beyond midnight they became all philosophical and Kou brought up an interesting topic “What is the class you would most hate to face one on one?” he said. “For me it is actually a


    “Alright, I will go next to balance things. My worst enemy is a Titan.” Janette said and Marcus looked surprised. “Really?” he said but Janette nodded with a serious look on her face. “Right now I have still the upper hand but I can see how, down the road, a Titan becomes so tanky that I can eventually no longer kill them. Does not matter if I get all hits in, all the time, if the Titan can out tank and heal it. The only hope I have is that you never get anything that helps you move faster or better that I can kite you forever. Well until I ran out of ammunition.” She explained and it made sense.


    “Now it is your turn Marcus.” Janette said with a smile. “Well, generally there are a lot of classes that are scary but my worst enemy are those with powerful crowd control abilities, like the Spatial Mage. But on the top is definitely Onmyoji (rank 11). They are incredibly skill based but if you meet a really smart one, there are so many ways they can mess you up with their talismans.” Marcus said. “True, have you seen that viral video some months back of that Onmyoji girl who killed the twenty level higher Berserker without as much as a scratch?” Grace said and they watched it just to confirm how scary that class was. With their ability to cause a wide range of effects on things their talismans touches you need to be constantly on the look out for those talismans. Miss one and you might be dead meat like that Berserker who stepped on one and was paralyzed.


    Last was Achara, because Candis did not want to fight anybody ever. “I don’t have a singular class that I find most scary but anything that can cause large scale aoe attacks with fire I truly dread. I hate the idea to be burned and my invisibility does not protect me against it. If I ever get Phase Walk to work it would be a lot better but things like the Paladins Channel Light or the Firelord’s burn effect can’t be avoided.” Achara said and Marcus could understand that. “With so many classes every class can be countered in some way. That is why we need to work together.” Marcus said and Janette reacted with “Hear, hear, the wise words of the clan leader.” When the laughter died out Grace spoke up once more. “Besides other classes there are of course monsters too. Have you ever heard of a double evolution monster?” and a lot of head shaking followed.


    Grace vanished into her new room and came back with a tablet. She searched for something and finally showed everyone a picture of a terrifying monster. The closest thing Marcus could compare it too was a bone dragon from one of his old computer games. But it was not bone instead it had a skinny body made from dense white flesh, it also lacked wings. The eyes were glowing purple and it was surrounded by an air of death and destruction. “That thing alone wiped out a full 20 man raid team. Everybody level 80 or higher. Happened two months ago in an underground ruin on a ghastly ice planet.” Marcus felt cold fear grasp his guts. “Does that mean evolved forms can evolve again? How often can that happen?” Achara asked and Grace shrugged her shoulders. “So far this kind of thing is the worst we have seen, but I would bet it is not the end of it. If class holders can become as strong as the Protector, I bet the monoliths and their creators have made things that can stand up to them.”


    Marcus fully agreed with Grace. They often talk about how powerful a level 100 class holder was but out there were things that could rip them apart like wet paper. It reminded him of the Undead on that horse a while back. “Grace what do you think about the Undead?” He asked. Grace thought for a moment “What ever they are, they are no monsters, they are intelligent and they have purpose. From what I have heard from rumors there have been several more encounters that have not been made public and the Undead are extremely tough. According to one rumor the Chinese have actually destroyed a foot soldier type by bombarding it from long range. But they completely exhausted several level 100+ class holders and that thing was trapped at the time. So, my opinion? They are an absolute nightmare, maybe worse than the monsters.” And on that note they disbanded the meeting and went to bed. Marcus still lay awake for a long time thinking of Undead riding on the back of bone dragons.