Supreme Lord of Soulnight

The Dark Caves

Chroma and Peaceout left right after their meeting. Liwan went back to the enchanted kiln and continued creating fruity potions until Blade’s personal inventory emptied of the ingredients. He the sent his team a message to meet him at that same tavern, storing the potions in Blade’s vault for safekeeping.

One by one, his team mates popped in, lead by RagingInferno. B-Champ and Valeria trailed after him, followed by Shadowstrikes at the tail.

“I already started making potions. Like planned, the potions you’re planning to create should coincide with the creator’s build. All red type potions should be RagingInferno’s assignment, Valeria’s blue, B-Champ green and I’ll leave the rest of the yellows to Shadowstrikes,” Liwan said. “Do you still have questions?”

“None,” the four chorused.

“Anyone who runs out of gold coins, you can use a dummy account I set up.” Liwan gave them the account name and password. “Remember, we must finish all the ingredients within an hour. We still have to tweak B-Champ and Valeria’s stats. And then we hunt.”

“Are we hunting right away?” B-Champ asked.

“Yes.” Blade turned to Valeria. “It’s time to dress Valeria up.”

RagingInferno grunted. “What monster are we going to kill for her equipment?”

“The Dark Sidhe,” Blade answered.

“D-Dark Sidhe? That monster is too f*****g hard to kill…her armor is very desirable though,” Valeria stuttered.

“Valeria’s healing is a little bit…” Shadowstrikes trailed off but decided to continue nevertheless. “Anyway, Li has plans. Right, Li? We won’t be diving into our deaths blind?”

“Of course not, we’re no cannon fodder,” Liwan chuckled. Blade’s shoulders on the game shook a little. “So let’s start on those potions. We need a lot.”

B-Champ spurred their team on. “Let’s go!”

RagingInferno and Shadowstrikes disappeared, warping to Enorcal where the other enchanted kiln was located. B-Champ and Valeria remained in Rionas and headed to the enchanted kiln outside the town center. Liwan sent Blade to the icy forests of Aisenor to grind experience and level up solo while his team mates are busy. Leaving Blade with the automatic helper on, he pulled out his notes and started reading.

He heard his phone’s message alert sound. But when he reached out for his phone to check, he saw Anne Marie’s number. Liwan put down his phone, ignoring her messages. If he’s the same sixteen year-old Liwan, he must have jumped with joy. But too many things have changed. That naive young boy is already gone.

Ten minutes before one hour was up, Liwan heard the soft ding of a message popping in his screen. He put away his notebook and wore his headphones. It was Denver, informing him that everyone is done. Liwan immediately canceled Blade’s automatic helper before warping to Rionas. He found his team gathered at bank, clearing their vaults to make space for the potions they just created.

“How’s it going, guys?” Blade asked.

“Good. We all used up the ingredients and the turn out is not bad,” Valeria answered.

“Now you know the not so secret secret of creating fruity potions with higher success rate.”

“Don’t worry, captain. We will keep it to ourselves. You can count on that,” B-Champ assured him.

“I am not worried.”

Truly, he isn’t. The secret trick about the potion creation is bound to be discovered by players eventually. So there is no way Liwan would feel hurt about the thing. After all, it is not his exclusive knowledge. It just so happened that he was fortunate enough to be the first to find out, with him being from the future and all.

“Sometimes I don’t understand where does your confidence come from,” Valeria muttered.

Liwan pretended he didn’t hear that. Instead, he verified with his team how many potions do they have. When the final tally came up, Liwan smiled to himself, a sense of satisfaction washing down on him. He clapped his hands.

“Alright. Valeria and B-Champ, I’m sending a document through our group chat. Those are the points you need to deduct or add from your currents stats. Once you’re done, let me know. We’ll conduct a test and see whether there are improvements. As you can you see, there’s three to five stat distribution table I made. The results would depend on the test we would conduct after each tweak before we decide what to use.”

The two new members did as told. RagingInferno, Shadowstrikes and Blade all served as the opponents to test B-Champ and Valeria’s PVP damage and defense. Liwan wants his team to be all rounded so they also tested the two members against different monsters in various maps. After exhausting all the suggested tweaks, they all decided to pick the most ideal according to B-Champ and Valeria’s damage and defense.

Now they’re ready. Liwan instructed his team to stock up health and mana potions as well as witch lights from an NPC before heading out to the map where there target is—the Dark Caves located south of Leeven.

They warped to the center of Leeven. From there, they have to go on foot towards the Dark Caves. Blade led the team, strategically in formation with Valeria in the middle. RagingInferno and B-Champ taking the left and right side, while Shadowstrikes took up the rear. That way, they could easily defend the weaker Valeria as they go.

They run for at least ten minutes before finally coming to a stop in front of a cave’s opening as tall as RagingInferno.

“Is this it? I was expecting something bigger and scary,” B-Champ commented.

“This is just the entrance. You know caves, they look small and unimposing on the outside but a lot different on the inside,” Shadowstrikes said.

“Do not judge the cave by the size of it’s entrance,” Blade reminded the team. “It was named Dark Caves because the darkness inside is comparable to none.”

“This place give me the creeps,” Valeria muttered under her breath.,

She has reason to feel that way. They haven’t set one foot inside but the feeling it gave was eerie, as if they’re experiencing the real thing. The howling of the wind in their earphones magnified the feeling.

“Come on, we don’t have all night,” he said to his team.

He guided Blade inside while the rest followed him. The moment Blade stepped inside, nothing but darkness greeted him. No matter how he turned Blade around, there’s just nothing. It’s as if the cave entrance got sealed. He could hear his team mates cursing because of the dark.

“Take out your witch lights,”Liwan ordered over the party’s communication link.

Blade also took one witch light from his inventory. All it took was a light shake of the unimposing orb for it to come alive and spread it’s radiance. A regular witch light is a size of a three-year old child’s fist. The bigger and brighter ones are roughly a size of a basketball but not sold to players. It is exclusively used to light buildings across the whole of Soulnight and illuminates major roads at night time.

One after the other, witch lights were lit. Everyone can now see each other’s faces. No words were exchanged as they looked around. They’re now inside a tall, narrow cavern.

“Come on,” Blade urged his team mates as he led them towards the single path that will eventually lead them inside the bowels of the Dark Caves.