The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

Chapter 22: To the Batcave!

“A bat is the only mammal on the planet that can fly. Its job is to show us how to evolve, become our best selves, and our best selves are the ones that win. See, every single version of us I pulled through, the happiest versions, they’re all selfish."

(The Batman Who Laughs.)

Crouching near some bushes overlooking the cottage, Crucis didn't hear any player approach for five minutes. It wasn't that surprising. Many of the larger Guilds were encouraging players to go to sleep instead of worrying about the bug, in the hope that it was fixed when they awoke. Other players were just tired due to the stress, and didn't want to wander out of safe zones, let alone in the woods at night. Regardless, it seemed like it might be safe for him to take the quest.

Walking up to the cottage, Crucis was greeted by an old man, whose dark-blue suit was almost like camouflage in the night. This old NPC offered him a list of several tasks that needed doing, but said to only pick one that was suited to Crucis' strengths because other players could complete the rest. Crucis took this as the game's way of saying that these were class-based quests and players should choose ones which are relevant to their own class and favoured weapons, since a Knight getting a spell scroll might be slightly wasteful for instance. Due to this, Crucis waited until he heard the NPC mention a quest, "to steal an ornamental dagger from a boss' lair, without alerting the boss or his guards." This sounded like it was relevant to the Assassin class. The NPC also specified that Crucis could not use offensive skills to attack the guards or boss. Crucis had heard that this task was seen as difficult even for high-level players, and players generally gave up. The only players whom he had heard of passing it were Assassins from the Spy sub-class and around level 35+, since they could unlock the ability to form a disguise and other ways to infiltrate the base. Nonetheless, he figured it was worth a try.

The NPC said that the boss' lair was a partially-collapsed cave to the Southeast of the woods. Crucis hence turned left again, and walked past the clump of trees where he had seen Andrej and Ron training. Eventually, he found a high rock wall, and started walking carefully along it, looking for a cave. It seemed to be connected to an expanse of hills that went Southwards and extended both East and West, eventually blocking off Southwards travel. However, he wouldn't have to search the whole range of hills, since the NPC had specified that the cave was in the woods.

He saw the distant silhouette of an opening in the rock wall, and carefully made his way over to it, looking and listening carefully for any guards. However, when he reached this position, he was surprised that there seemed to be no opening in the rock wall at all, just more rocks. Taking a few steps backwards, he tried to squint and check why he had seen the silhouette of a cave entrance over here. He saw that there had seemingly been a hole here, but it had apparently been scrapped and a pile of rocks was used to fill in the entrance. It was difficult to make out from a close distance, but from farther out it was obvious that this part of the rock wall was originally designed to be the entrance to a cave, and some of the stones were still arranged accordingly. This was seemingly not the cave that he was looking for, however.

Nonetheless, he wondered how much of the original cave had been designed before the entry was blocked off. It was possible that part of the rock wall was still hollowed out, and looking at the geometry of the wall it did seem like some of the rocks were sloping into an open space within the old cave area. Crucis walked up to the rock wall and sidestepped across the small area where he guessed the old cave's entry would be, until he saw multiple versions of the wall of rocks in front of him. Using [Agile Step], he walked into this wall. He knew that typically it wouldn't be possible to walk into hillsides using this bug, as the game treated them as boundaries rather than terrain obstacles, but this makeshift blockade at the entrance to a cave was possible to walk right into. Taking a step forward, he did see a dark, small cave area, and stepped in. The cave seemed to contain a small passage forwards, like a hallway, and this seemed to turn to the left. There was a small pool on the right of the cave.

Looking backwards, Crucis saw a large doorframe but no door. However, walking around the doorframe, he found that the door had simply been converted into an invisible wall. He slammed it shut. This would make it difficult for anyone else to enter this cave, even if they knew about the bug and snuck through. The bug still wouldn't get them past the invisible wall, since the game tended to use them to delineate the absolute edge of maps. Further, most players who knew the bug were probably higher-level and unlikely to come here. This meant that he could use this cave as a secure base. So far as he could see, the only way to enter this cave with closed door would be to enter the rock wall and then try to use [Agile Step] towards the pool at an angle until you got lucky and were teleported past the door. This would be elaborate and require a lot of trial and error, however, and it would hence be easy for Crucis to catch wind of. He could even make it more difficult with use of attacks like [Forceful Kick] to disturb the pool deflection attempts, which may also get him free strikes at the opponent. It was unlikely that he would gain any company here.

The main disadvantage of this cave is that, without the bug, it would generally be impossible to enter or exit. This could lead to being trapped here. However, Crucis didn't expect any major game update to occur without significant warning, since the players were inside the game and would probably have to stop their activities to allow for the fix to be done smoothly. He had also looted a [Kruxol Teleport Stone] from Andrej, which allows players to teleport into Kruxol centre if they activate it and do not enter a fight for 1 minute. It emitted a slight glow around the player, that was often compared to fireflies, and use of it was often known as 'fireflying.' Since he had this stone, he was unlikely to get trapped in here.

Wandering cautiously down the passageway, he was concerned to see a few flitters of movement down the left turn at the end of the passage. Crouching closer, he could see that a few level 25 bats were making their home in a small cavern on the left. That would be a dangerous adversary, but he saw that one was flying apart from the rest, and tried throwing a stone at it. The stone just missed, but he was surprised at first that the bat had no reaction. Then he realised that these bats were probably meant to be cosmetic, like a few bat spawns in caves that often inhabited places where people couldn't even reach, and were added for atmosphere but would not fight players. Players could try to fight these bats, but generally the bats would just flee if attacked, making it a pointless endeavour. They were typically too far away from players to be attacked effectively. However, Crucis found that he could sit down peacefully in the middle of the bat swarm, and not be attacked.

Cautiously, he got up and walked up to a bat that had flown into the main part of the cave. He tried to attack it with [Stunning Dagger], but his swing seemingly flew right through the bat without doing anything. He saw a red system message appear in the messagebox to his left, saying, 'ERROR: TARGET 'BAT' IS OUT OF BOUNDS'. It looks like, since this cave wasn't meant to be accessed, the creatures in here weren't registered as possible targets. Crucis wondered if, due to the numerous methods of interacting with an opponent in this game, there was some way to get around this and still fight the bats. However, he decided to check on this later, after finishing his current quest.

Opening the cave's invisible door, he used [Agile Step] to exit the cave by walking through the rock wall. Moving further East along the hillside, he finally saw what seemed to be a warmly lit cave with a dark-green orcish guard patrolling casually around the entrance. Crucis tried to figure out a way to map out the cave before entering, and decided to walk back into the woods and hide behind some greenery in order to get s view straight into the cave mouth. Finding a dense collection of trees for shelter, he looked carefully into the cave. The cave was fairly spacious, and seemed to have several candles on high stands lighting it comfortably. A makeshift wooden floor was laid around the centre of the cave. There were at least three guards inside, haphazardly patrolling the rooms. Crucis watched these patrols carefully, to see if there were any blind spots in the room which the guards did not check. He saw a few, mostly between the large cupboards placed in a square arrangement on the right side, and beneath the tables placed towards the right and left side of the entrance.

There was a tunnel in the right side of the cave, just beyond the cupboards, and this was probably where both the boss and the dagger were located. Due to this, he decided that he would have to find his way towards the cupboards, and slip through the gaps between them to reach a safe hiding place. This would be difficult, however, because he saw that the guards' paths always left one guard on the right side of the cave, meaning that Crucis couldn't simply walk into cover. He would have to figure out some kind of distraction or diversion to displace the guard, and then rely on a combination of the speed boost from [Stealth Cloak], [Dodge Step], and [Agile Step] to find his way into a safe area. In front of the cupboards were a host of weapon stands, probably used by the guards. Crucis saw a few weapons hung on the wall, and was interested in if they could be stolen by players, though he was unlikely to be able to do that now without being caught. Perhaps a player in the [Spy] sub-class would have better luck.

The large candles seemed like an obvious way to distract the guards, since toppling them onto the wooden tables and floor could start a small fire. Checking his inventory, he saw that he had taken some thick [Plain Bowstring] from Ron's corpse. For convenience, Bowstring items could immediately be drawn into a straight, firm shape when players extended them. He also had a [Torch] due to heading out at night, and he could use this to set further fires. He noticed that there were candles lit by the entrance to the cave, but the patrolling guards only tended to emerge near the right side of the cave entrance.

As such, he carefully sidled up to the candle on the left side once he saw a guard walk away from the entrance, and lit the torch using the candle. He held the [Bowstring] lightly in his other hand. Using [Stealth Cloak], he threw the [Lit Torch] at the makeshift wooden floor, and then shoved the candle stand down onto the floor as well. This set a small fire, which drew the attention of the guards, who were programmed to put out fledgling fires. Crucis was familiar with the guard's typical motions when alarmed. Using [Agile Step] with a crouching posture, he quickly bounded behind the guard on the right side of the cave, who had begun moving erratically towards the left side after being triggered by the fire, and crouched down extending the [Bowstring] in front of the guard's feet. He pulled this backwards, causing the guard to fall facefirst into the burning wooden floor, and without watching the guard's fall Crucis took off quickly towards the cupboards, using [Dodge Step] to sneak between them into a safe area.

The guards were alarmed, but they were mostly concentrating on putting out the fire. Once the flames began to flag slightly, two of them resumed their normal patrols. Crucis quickly scanned the row of weapons hanging on the wall, and saw a small dagger with rough edges near him. Quickly grabbing the [Scorn Dagger], which was one of the few weapons he could reach without attracting attention, he crouched down and moved towards the tunnel leading towards the boss. When the cooldown on [Stealth Cloak] ended, he used it again and snuck carefully into the tunnel.

There was a large hole in the right wall of this tunnel, where he could hear the large boss waiting. This hole was probably too long for him to cross with [Stealth Cloak]. At the end of the tunnel, he saw that a [Silver Dagger] was sitting on a small ceremonial stand on a table. Clearly, he would have to find a way to cross the boss's line of sight without being caught. Entering the left wall of the tunnel was difficult, because the game classified it as a part of the hillside. This meant that he would have to find some way of crossing this tunnel normally.

Using [Stealth Cloak], he cautiously peered into the boss' lair on the right of the tunnel. He saw that the boss was a large, green creature with the body of an orc and a serpent's head. There were two weapon cabinets near the boss, who would presumably grab weapons from them if he saw an intruder. These weapon cabinets would disappear if the boss died. Crucis decided to remember this location, as once players were strong enough to hold off the level 40 boss, these cabinets might be a good place to loot weapons during the boss fight. Looking upwards, Crucis saw that the boss' room had a large door above the entrance, which he guessed would fall to trap players who were seen entering.

The boss would occasionally turn around to inspect the cabinets carefully. This only lasted for a couple of seconds, however, so it didn't give Crucis enough of a head-start to be sure of reaching the other side of the tunnel before the boss turned around. However, Crucis reasoned that it was enough time to trigger the door to the boss' tunnel. The door had a lever next to it, and from Crucis' experience this lever would begin to turn as soon as a player was spotted, causing the door to plummet down once the lever reached its destination in a few seconds. There were a few doors which Crucis had seen that worked in this manner, especially around boss lairs. For bigger bosses, it took longer for the door to fall, so that larger groups could enter, but here it would probably take five to ten seconds from when a player entered.

When Crucis saw the boss turn around to inspect a weapon cabinet, he leapt quickly into the room in a single movement. He then instantly used [Agile Step] to backstep towards his previous location, teleporting out of the room before the door fell. He heard the door fall as he hid in the tunnel. As the door fell, blocking the boss' sight of the tunnel, Crucis began to sprint forwards towards the table. He used [Stealth Cloak] when he was about a third of the way across, as he estimated that it would last him long enough to make it past where the boss would see him from out of the lair. As the door slowly began to lift, he was already invisible, and using [Dodge Step] he reached just past the other end of the gap in the right wall.

Here, he hid silently, as he saw that there was a small room to the left of the silver dagger and there was probably a guard there. However, looking more closely, he saw that the guard was facing away, so he quickly grabbed the [Silver Dagger] and hid. While the quest text didn't specify, he knew that there was no need to maintain secrecy after grabbing the dagger, because the reason for stealth is because the silver dagger will disappear if a player is seen during the quest, leaving them no way to complete it. Being caught would have the game mark the player as unable to retrieve the dagger for up to twenty-four hours. However, once it was claimed, Crucis had heard that groups of players had just fought their way out. In order to prevent players from having to backtrack through the same area, which could become confusing if multiple players were doing the quest at once but heading in different directions, there was a trapdoor to the left of the dagger which could be used to escape into an underground path which led to a place near the cottage. This path could only be used by players who had the [Silver Dagger], however, so he equipped this to make sure that he could enter. He also sprayed this with some of the [Vile Toxin Gas], to delay the guard further. Since the guards could not follow him in without the silver dagger, he would only have to enter the trapdoor to be safe here.

Once his [Stealth Cloak] had ended its cooldown, Crucis stepped quickly into the room to the left and used [Stunning Dagger] to pacify the guard, then used this time to lift the trapdoor and slip under it. Just in case, he locked it using a latch on the door. Behind him was the loud thudding of the guard furiously pacing the room he had just left.

Making his way undisturbed through the underground passage, he emerged near the cottage, which was still quiet. He saw a few footsteps nearby that he didn't recognise, but whoever this was had clearly left the area to go West, bending over a few branches in that direction. Since it was empty in this area, he decided to return to the cottage to obtain his reward.