Dungeon Core Online 125 Chapter 125

"Anyone know who the hell Yarx is?" Z asked.

The party, after a few more skirmishes, and another tryst with some Jolly Dollies, had finally made it to the shrine to Yarx. Of course, it was sunken into the mud, and not exactly the most accessible, though James had made it possible to get to, should the adventurers want to. As such, they were all standing around the circle that led to the shrine, eyeing it suspiciously. James wasn't 100 percent sure how such objects appeared to the players, but if it was similar to other MMOs he had played in immersion, the name for the shrine likely hung-over head for them.

Of course, that was all that it would show, and they would actually have to present an offering to the shrine, in order to see what the buff was that it gave them. And, unlike Rue's shrine, this one didn't have any mention or even a poem regarding what it did.

"He is the All-Seeing God and sits at the top of the pantheon for deities in DCO." Everyone, including James, paused at the response. It didn't come from Z, or Skar, or any of the more serious players. In fact, it came from Manly the Dwarf. Literally the last person James would have expected to care about lore, other than maybe Troll'd.

"He, err… thanks?" Z, just like everyone else literally standing around the statue, seemed more than a little surprised. After all, no one would expect a player named Manly the Dwarf to actually care about lore in an MMO. James had figured he was the type of player that just wanted to run around killing things with an axe, which he did do quite well.

"No problem." Manly added as he pulled out a flask. Engraved on the side of it, was a hammer and anvil, the symbol of the dwarven deity of battle, Brolaf. Alright, so maybe Manly was more than just a little into lore.

"When did you become a lore hound?" Troll'd bent over to nudge the dwarf, who simply took a long swig from his flask, before calmly putting it away.

"Eh, I got drunk to the point my character passed out during the first 24 hours of DCO. So, because he was technically incapacitated, I had a lot of time back in my starting area to waste. I figured I would check out the dwarven deities, and then just kind of got dragged into it. There's pretty much a deity for everything." Manly shrugged, while everyone else just stared hard at him.

Alright, so maybe that did make sense. Manly had started out as just someone that wanted to do dwarven drinking and fighting things, and had managed to get himself black out drunk, and thus kicked from his incapacitated form, during the first day of immersion. That was one of the few blessings of immersion. While you could get yourself drunk, if, for some reason whatever you had done to yourself in a game resulted in you falling unconscious, you were returned to your starting zone for immersion. You would be unable to relog into your character until it had finally regained consciousness, of course, but you weren't overly penalized. It wasn't like they just counted your character as asleep and yanked 8 hours from you.

Of course, you couldn't escape all the downsides of your actions. Usually the hangover you felt when you did return to consciousness in game was extremely brutal, which was why a lot of clerics actually hung out around taverns in MMOs. They could make some quick coin offering to cure hangovers.

"Maybe we should check out the deities a little later on." Z looked at his members, who all shrugged. While they were definitely veteran MMO players, they likely originally viewed the pantheon as just neat background information. And, while it was interesting, it didn't have any direct tie ins to the game yet, from what James could tell, meaning players were less likely to actually care about it.

"Seems like a lot of work." Oak grumbled, glancing around at the different paths that led away from the shrine. "Where do you think these other paths lead?" He was, of course, referring to the seven paths that led away from the shrine. The six paths to the swag shacks, and the one to Rue's shrine. James was really hoping they would go investigate all of those. So far, they hadn't stopped at any of the outhouses, which had been disappointing. There was a total of three mimics on his third floor, spread across 17 different swag shacks. The outhouses that weren't mimics, actually acted as treasure chests. So, they were missing out. Of course, one of the six outhouses that circled around the shrine, was actually a mimic. And James really wanted some experience.

"Why don't you go look? If you are brave enough to go it alone." Gno-more grinned at Oak as the Indra shot him an angry look. "Of course, you might want to watch out for snakes."

"How about we check out this shrine, and then go check them all out together?" Z was already walking towards the Shrine of Yarx as he spoke, his eyes glancing around the area. He stepped lightly onto the small, narrow path that led towards the shrine, eying the murky swamp water around the shrine hesitantly. James could tell Z was nervous, but at the same time, Rue's shrine was extremely easy to approach on the first floor. So, James figured Z was having an internal conflict about how careful he needed to be in his approach to the shrine.

After a moment, the Beast Master let out a deep breath. "YOLO." He said aloud, and he boldly strode towards the shrine.

"YOLO?" James asked Rue as Z made his way closer to the shrine.
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"It stands for 'You Only Live Once.'" She responded, her eyes practically sparkling with anticipation and glee. She knew, just as he did, what was about to happen.

"Oh, well that's fitting." He chuckled, just as Z reached the end of the path. He had, of course, put traps in place on his third floor. Especially in front of the Shrine of Yarx. The buffs it gave were too good to just let players snag easily. And, that meant Z had just put himself in line for one of James's newest traps. "Should have prayed to the Goddess of Luck first." James whispered as the trap sprang to life.

It was actually a multi part trap, meant to essentially guarantee at least one player was killed each time they approached the shrine, until they figured out it was trapped. The first part of the trap to spring, was that when the adventurer neared the end of the path, the planks they were standing on would actually drop away, causing the player to drop quickly into the murky swamp waters. Instead of solid ground under the water, there was quicksand, which would swiftly begin pulling the adventurer down and under.

At the same time, the circular path the players were standing on around the shrine, would begin to creak and crack as well, with pieces of boards dropping and falling left and right all over, making the path even more treacherous. Then, as that chaos was breaking out, the shrine of Yarx would actually tip over, falling on top of the adventurer that was trapped in the quicksand. James knew adventurers would have a decent amount of life going into he third floor. But he figured giant statue falling on their heads, coupled with a quicksand trap and drowning, would quickly equal death.

He also found it poetic that the last thing they saw, before they were turned into a glowing orb, was Xander's face. It was a nice little way to make people secretly begin to hate Xander as much as James did. Huzzah trap.

As planned, the trap went off successfully, and Z suddenly went from the land of the living, to the land of the floating orb. Of course, his own comment was only slightly ironic, as the party was able to regain their footing, and Med Ic was able to perform a resurrection for Z before he was sent all the way back to the start of the zone. Unfortunately for Z, his death meant the Shrine to Yarx had just cost him all of his experience, and he had been close to level 33. James felt slightly bad about that, given the fact that dungeon wars was right around the corner, but he figured he needed to make himself stronger as well. Besides, Z and his party were sure to continue grinding experience before the war started in full swing.

Achievement Unlocked – DIEvine Judgement – Kill an adventurer utilizing a holy shrine

Reward- 5000xp, 1000 resources, +1 upgrade to all shrines*

*(increases duration, and effect rates of shrine boosts and buffs by 1% per shrine upgrade level.)

"Praise Yarx," James jokingly exclaimed as he read the achievement, even as Z was cursing him below in the instance. Between Z's death experience, and the achievement, James was now just under 10k experience from becoming a Tier 3 Rank 5 Dungeon. Which, given his normal rate of experience gain daily in immersion, meant he was without a doubt going to hit Rank 6 before day one of the dungeon war started. Meaning, James was about to have a total of 5 extra skill points for all of his tier 3 mobs. With those upgrades, and from what he knew of BLANKs adventurers thanks to their forums, they were not going to be able to profit at all from his third floor.

Chapter end