Through the grassy valleys I could see a lot of ox like monsters grazing and paying little attention to the few players that had just crossed into this floor. I heard the door close with a thud behind me signaling the enter of Andrew into this floor. I looked for a way down from this entrance cliff when I saw three sets of stairs leading down to the valley below us each leading onto a different path leading in different directions.
I turned to Andrew who was still taking in the vast and almost uniform landscape when I asked. "So which way do we go, Left to the mountain range, straight ahead to the low valleys or right to the hilly are?"
"Lets go to the mountains to do some training as that's where the higher level monsters are going to be and most of the players are going down the centre path." He replied after a few moments of consideration.
"Left it is then, to the mountains the home of the Noble and Ancient Dwarven race." I say with pride remembering my old gaming nickname I gained from being unbelievably skilled and lucky when underground.
"Shame that Dwarves aren't even in this game then isn't it." He said with a smile also remembering easier times in the past. So we began the long trek to the mountain range after reaching the bottom of the 48 black marble stairs into a sparsely vegetated flat land. On this path we came across many of the ox monsters I saw earlier and so me and Andrew take the opportunity to fight these floor monsters. Due to their slow speed in attacking they posed little threat of hitting us and only took a few sword skills to kill. However these monsters had a collective AI and when one of them was attacked the rest that were around would come to the attacked ones aid making the battle much harder than it originally was. But this didn't put us off from attacking them it just made it more fun and more challenging fight which is what the first floor was recently unable to give us. After an hour or two of walking and battling we reached the foot of the mountain range.
"So do we just walk down the middle of it or what?" Andrew asked curiously after not seeing a main path leading through the area.
"We look for mountain passes along the sides of the mountains. These will hopefully lead onto the mountains where there are likely to be caves filled with either high level monsters or rare loot." I answer after a moment of thinking through our options. "And if we are on the floor anything could ambush us or simply fall on us without us being able to do anything about it." I continue with the tone of an experienced man, which of course I wasn't. So after this we began our search for any mountain side path which we could climb up onto the mountain sides. This search lasted for about 20 minutes of hard searching, we eventually found a narrow path which led up the side of one of the smaller mountains right on the edge of the range. I looked up at the sky for the sun and estimated that it was about 3 O'clock in the afternoon, plenty of time before having to set up a camp. As we walked up the narrow path small stones broke loose underfoot, dust and pebbles rained down on us every so often but surprisingly enough the treacherous path held no monsters of which I had expected to ambush us at any given moment. About half an hour later we had reached a small flat area with a wide, round and dark cave entrance into the side of the mountain.
"Well this is what we came here looking for and as we don't have much time left before we have to set up camp for the night, I think we should have a look." I say to Andrew slowly and cautiously as I carefully walk towards the opening with my sword raised with a firm grip and my eyes scanning the shadows for any sign of a monster of some sort. I quickly look behind me to see that Andrew also has his rapier raised in one hand and in another he was holding a lit torch in front of him to spread light around the cave. When I turn back I see a shadow quickly move once more back into the true darkness away from the light Andrew's torch was producing. I squint my eyes to make out anything in the darkness but I see nothing so I keep moving forward, more alert than before however. A few moments later out of the darkness 3 green and yellow skinned Goblins wielding formidable notched swords above their heads with one hand come charging at us taking me and Andrew completely by surprise but not off guard. The lead one swings his sword at me with such strength it takes all the power I've got in me to block it without being knocked down, the second one follows up with a sweep at my head. I am able to avoid this swipe by quickly ducking under the blade and then swiftly moving away from the two to get some ground between me and them. Andrew however, who due to being behind me was more prepared for the attack, was able to parry the third goblins attack on him and deftly continue with a wide open sweep aimed at the goblins neck. The Goblin takes the full brunt of the blow and is knocked straight to the ground with about half of its HP remaining.
Now that the initial surprise attack was over I sized up my opponents and ran at the two Goblins which had attacked me and stabbed the first one in the stomach killing it straight off and then dragging my sword from the now falling body of the dead Goblin swept my sword at the neck of the lead Goblin decapitating it with a clean cut through it's neck bone and greasy flesh. The head rolled off of the dead Goblin's neck and the headless body fell to the ground where it exploded into dark green particles. Andrew, beside me had continued with his counter attack using his sheer speed to dodge around the Goblins sword and then to deliver two fatal stabbing blows to the Goblin's with his rapier ending his enemy.
Now with the Goblins dead we continued down the wide cave with great caution waiting a few moments after each step. We continued this with no sight of any monsters until we reached another entrance into a completely circular room with damaged and mossy pillars of granite holding the ceiling up. At the other side of the room to us stood a perfect and magnificently carved white marble table, however behind this table sat I large dark green skinned Orc wearing a black metal scale mail shirt torn and bloody leather trousers and an intimidating iron helmet engraved with runes promising death. This Orc sat upon a throne of the bones that had been ripped cruelly from the flesh of his now dead enemies. When we slowly walked into the room two braziers attached to the wall behind the Orc lit up in flames and the Orc raised it's head to see us standing at the entrance to it's home, armed and prepared to kill. He rose from his throne of bleached bones and drew a black Katana, with a ruby encrusting at the hilt, from it's black Saya on it's belt. He then gave out a tremendous war cry and raised his sword high into the air.
A moment after the Orc's war cry at least 6 Goblins appeared out of nowhere from behind the pillars and were on us in a second. Since our last battle went so well after we recovered from the initial surprise we charged straight at these new foes fully prepared. I took on 4 Goblins while Andrew took on the other two, I was madly swinging my sword from one place to another to block their attacks before going in for a quick jab to their stomachs for damage whereas Andrew, to my right hand side, was deftly dodging around his opponents and landing many more, however weaker, hits upon the two Goblins he fought. About 20 seconds into the fight Andrew had dispatched his opponents and I had taken down three of my own, the last Goblin fell by a powerful sword sweep by me to it's stomach and by having Andrew's sword rammed through the back of it's neck.
With these Goblins out of the way we walked forward into the centre of the room keeping a close watch on the Orc who had yet to move during the whole fight. "Something's wrong, why isn't he attacking?" I thought to myself before seeing a smug grin that had now spread across the Orc's face. I quickly turned my head round to see that even more Goblins had spawned in and were now practically surrounding us with a circular movement.
"Back to back." I order Andrew hurriedly now realising that the chances of success were low. As we stood back to back, swords raised, the Goblins circled round us and got closer and closer with each rotation. When some had got close enough both me and Andrew attempted to hit them but they simply jumped back and completely avoiding our attack.
"To the death or do we make a charge to the exit?" I ask Andrew with a fiery determination which had begun to rise up within me these past few months.
However before Andrew could reply I heard a new battle cry of a player come from the entrance, I whipped my head around to see a green glowing battle axe sweeping through the bodies of three Goblins killing them in that one hit. The Goblins confused at what was going on saw a new attacker who posed more of a threat and charged at him leaving me and Andrew free from the trap we were just in.
"GO HELP HIM! THAT ORC IS MINE!" I shout to Andrew who promptly nods his head and goes to the aid of the our now outnumbered saviour. I turned to face the Orc captain who was baring his teeth savagely at me and charged with no care of my own safety. I swung my sword at it as soon as I got in range, it was blocked and then quickly followed up with a swing to my chest which I skillfully blocked before bringing my sword up and smashing it into the lower jaw of my enemy and then jumping back to prepare another charge. The blow that had connected made the Orc stagger back a few paces and loosen it's grip on the sword it wielded, this gave me enough time to charge back in and cut down at it's left shoulder. The blow connected and ripped off the Orc's entire left arm, the Orc violently screamed in pain and wrath. Without care for style or finesse the Orc began to wildly swing it's sword at me with tremendous force which smashed into my blocks creating virtual sparks between the two blades. I went in for a stab at it's unguarded neck to finish off this elite monster, but I had misjudged his sword lunge and instead of harmlessly going past me the blade cut deeply into my exposed stomach sending bright red particles out of my body and cutting my hp down by a quarter. The shock of getting hit was quickly drowned by fury which I channeled into my next strike which found it's mark by ripping through the flesh around the neck of the Orc and then cutting up from under the helmet which cut the Orc's head in half and knocking it's helmet into the wall where it clattered loudly and then fell with a thud. The mutilated Orc dropped it's sword on the ground before dropping to it's knees and bursting into hundreds of dark green particles.
Without a care for the victory panel in front of me I turned to rejoin the fight against the Goblin's who seemed now to have stop spawning. I charged into the fight slicing rapidly at anything I saw with green flesh and decapitating any that got to close. The last of the goblins, seeing that it had no chance of living, turned to run but was blocked by another figure who smashed his shield into it's face before brutally stabbing his sword through the stunned Goblin. The swordsman wore a red shirt and had a chest plate of iron, he had short spiky brown hair and kind blue eyes. The tall axe man was in a green shirt and wore a steel chest plate and leather gloves, he had short black hair and determination in his eyes. I looked at the two in shock and disbelief and as I looked between the two both of them wore smug smiles as they watched my confusion.