175 The Final Trial I : Invitation, Waking Dragons (1/2)
The cargo ship we were on was really old, so we also had to ditch it as soon as possible. Apparently during the time I've been gone, my crew had infiltrated a large snuggling ring and stole one of their flagships, unfortunately there's been a planet wide blockade with the arrival of demons and devil's from the gates of hell, not to mention I was very much a wanted man. The popular consensus was that I was the only one who knew what had happened in the Ocean City Of Atlantis, since till date my ship and crew were the only known survivors, even players who were stuck in the city were not allowed to speak of what was happening, the game itself had most of them under contract not to expose the details of the events. Which left only one sea faring rogue captain with the answers they needed.
Bounties have been placed, rewards were being given out, and such and such. I didn't care though, let them deal with that shit themselves. Our main concern now was how to get off the planet and get a better ship as soon as possible. Apparently the guys we stole this ship from had placed a tracker of sorts on it, the only problem here is that the tracker was of a magical nature, and no on here was well versed enough in magic to disable it. Houki was super smart, but her smarts were only limited to in-game medicine and the magic that went with it, which is also a fancy way of saying out perfect group was missing a mage.
”So any suggestions on how to break the blockade?” I asked the assembled crew, Raven Song, Zareth, Mack and Dinah all had their heads down in embarrassment. They were being punished, of course standing with a cup full of fuel on your head could not be considered punishment, but when you're balancing on a can placed on top of a patch hot coals, then that's punishment. They're still very much a part of this meeting though.
”That would be impossible, the blockade is the fighter I've seen in my entire life and it's formed from a coalition of all the major power holders on new Gaia. We need access from one of them to even be able to get off the planet, much less go through the blockade. And last I checked we've fallen out of the Grace's of your elven sugar mummy.” Qitar answered with an annoyed look on her face, but a voice that was still very much bland. I guess she was still angry I vanished for two whole weeks, even with Houki explaining why, she was still upset. Guess someone's gotten attached to her captain.
”Well we're public enemy no1 so how the hell are we to get off this planet, and it has to be soon before we get drawn into a shit storm. I really don't want to be here when the whole demon thing blows over, and can someone tell me where the fuck Persephone is!” I asked as I got up from my seat.
At the moment the ship was hiding with a thick cluster of storm clouds somewhere over a continent called Derak, so far all of our adventures has been on the sea and on islands, not one of us know what the main lands are like, but then again at this point we're not really interested, we just wanted to get off the planet.
” I've analyzed the blockade, there's a weak point in it where we can break through, however I reckon it's a trap that they had set for us. But we can break through the blockade if we get close enough and if we use the Acheron, it has the fire power we need to break through.” Dinah said to me with a smirk on her face, I looked at her and said.
”Did I say you could talk.....but none the less tell me how you intend to use a sea faring vessel against starships ten to twenty times bigger than it. I don't get how you can make that work, so please enlighten me.”
”When you say it like that, you make me seem like and idiot!” Dinah complained with a pout, I raised an eyebrow and asked.
”Aren't you already an idiot?”
” well, not that big an idiot, and only for the duration of this punishment. We're sorry we were drinking on duty, but would you listen to my idea or not?” she asked me with an exasperated sigh.
”Fine then, let's hear it.”
”Well we can just go knock on their front door, they wouldn't expect that, we just need someone to get us closer. As for how we can use the Acheron, this cargo ship has a magnetic plate built into it's frame. It's old technology, but back in the days cargo ship's that cleared space of dirt and debris used it to attract literally mountains of junk to their frames and deposited them close to stars, where the gravity from the stars would pull the space junk and incinerate them. They don't really add that kind of hardware to ship's anymore, but this ship has it. And we can use it to keep the Acheron attached to it, and just in time to have it power up the Ion Cannon and break through the blockade. Of course they would probably notice the ship getting powered up and take measure to stop it before we get close enough, but I recently developed a controlled EMP cannon that I'm also going to be adding to the Acheron's weapons system. All of the tools and materials I need to use to build it is on the ship, I just need to get that fucking dragon to wake up and get off my tool cache.”
” Well that's a good idea and all, but we still need someone to get us close, they would see us coming from a mile away, and they'll stop us. From what you have planned we only have a very small window to act, so we need to make sure we're as close as possible, but that is now another problem.” I Said to Dinah as I leaned back on the chair I was on, but then Qitar handed me a hologram with words on it.
”I might have a solution for that; the trial of the tree of revelation has reached the final ring, and it's now between the crown prince of Patmos and his sister princess Martha. Almost everyone within the nobility and power circle are in support of the prince, the princess is known to be a very strong advocate for change, and that's quite frankly something that none of the want. However it's not up to them, as the trial itself is very sacred, so they can only watch helplessly as the princess goes against her brother.
The final trial states that both of them would have to find a champion to fight for them, in a series of tests. It's going to be a massive and very bloody obstacle course that both champions would have to go through and try to kill each other in the process. The prince has chosen his champion, it's the sin dragon avatar of Anger. A half orchish, half dragon, half elfin berserker by the name of Locke DoomShadow. I guess you could say he's basically you, just a lot more rogue like and handsome and very dangerous.
So far no one has accepted to be the princess's champion, Locke's reputation precedes him, apart from Io, it is believed that not many people have a chance of beating him. She sent this invitation to you a week ago, I told her we've not heard from you yet, however the deadline is in three days, we can get you a disguise and send her a message that help is coming.