The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

Chapter 134: A Fine Day to Die

Crucis woke up abruptly to the sound of loud sirens.

Sitting up scruffily in bed, he looked around and heard a few players' panicked shouts from outside the inn. Wiping the dirt from his eye, he saw a large, red announcement flashing in the panel to his lower-left.

[A player has activated the Galar Talisman and slain the wanderer Kvasir, who was a symbol of the peace between Aesir and Vanir. As a result, war has broken out once more in the Heavens, and an invading army of Asuras has taken advantage of this discord to make incursions!

Chaos reigns in the Heavens, where brother raises arms against brother. Many fear that it is just a prelude to Ragnarok. Brave players may join this fight, and gain powerful equipment and items. In this chaos, players may fight against each other, or against the armies of Asuras and gods.

Weapons in the Heavens will be transformed into Divinity Weapons, which are composed of near-weightless purified Eitr. These weapons will strike through enemies effortlessly, meaning that even a lower-level player has a chance of killing a strong player. Mages may enter the fight around Glasir, archers will be sent to fight in Folkvangr, and melee classes will be sent to join the fight in the vast area surrounding Glasislundr.

The top 100 in each class will enter the battle automatically, and the rest of the top 300 will be queued up to enter the fight when another falls. Be prepared!]

That was a rude awakening. Someone must have activated this during the last night, but it wasn't clear whom. Given that the last world event was just a draugr invasion, this seemed like a noticeable escalation, and was probably meant to be activated later. Whoever started this had probably beelined it.

Below it was another message:

[Congratulations! As a high-ranked Assassin, you have been chosen to enter the battle from the start! You will be transported automatically to the heavens in 10 minutes, and the battle will begin in half an hour.]

Automatic transport to the heavens? It beat waiting on St. Peter's decision at the pearly gates.

Stretching, he quickly ran over whether it would be better to enter this event as Crucis or Cael. The battle between Mages seemed likely to be chaotic, and it would be easy to be taken by surprise or caught in the crossfire of many, large area-of-effect attacks. However, in a fight between melee classes, there was still some room to maneouevre, hide, and pick his battles. Indeed, Assassins might actually have an advantage over other melee classes in this event. As such, it seemed more reasonable to stay as Crucis for this event.

As his senses grew more alert, he could hear some players outside screaming that the Hashin had claimed the event as their own doing. He wasn't sure about whether this was a hysterical rumour or a fact.

Thinking about it, however, it would make sense. Since many large players would have their names displayed and be vulnerable to permanent death, it would clear out the ranks of the Hashin's competitors and threats. After all, with weapons able to sever enemies with little effort, the risk of death is very high even for a high-level player. While it would be a dangerous period, if he could get through it without serious debilitating injury it would probably be beneficial.

Plus, the Hashin are probably one of the few Guilds with the know-how to beeline content like this and unlock it weeks or even months in advance.

Besides, who else would have the motive to pull off such a heist? It could, theoretically, have been done by a small player who wanted the larger ones to kill each other off. However, that was unlikely. This event was major enough that it would require clearing high-level content to unlock, something which a player outside the top 100 of their class was unlikely to do.

It also favoured Assassins, like the Hashin. Or Crucis, for that matter. However, he'd probably have to be more circumspect.

Anyway, he had ten minutes to prepare. He quickly got out of bed and checked through his menu, to catch up on any features which he had been too busy to look through yesterday.

While he waited, he checked on the new features which he had unlocked through levelling up. Seemingly, reaching level 58 had unlocked a new feature called [Class Perk], while reaching level 60 unlocked [Weapon Enhancement].

Opening a new option on the menu named [Class], he navigated through to open a window for [Class Perk]. Each class had one perk set by default, and could choose which further perks to use. He saw that, as an Assassin, this initial perk was called [Killer Instinct], and displayed a cross-hair in the direction that the tip of your weapon was pointing.

Testing it out with his sword, he saw that it produced a cross-hair in front of him, and when he used [Lunge] it easily passed through the target. Turning around and crouching slightly, he immediately tried a tricky [Rising thrust], and found that it was easier to aim when he could quickly see where it was going. This skill would be useful for evaluating when an opportunistic [Lunge] or dagger thrust might be appropriate during a fight at close range.

This feature hadn't been fully implemented when the game was being tested, and at the time it had only featured the the warrior class perk, [Duel]. It increased weapon movement speed when using a defensive skill, allowing for more efficient parries and blocks. It was especially valuable for tanks, and a few players claimed that it allowed for tanks good at swordplay to draw fights out for a few additional minutes.

So far, he had one further choice. He could choose between the skill [Marshall], which increased STR by 20% when HP was under 20%, and the skill [Drain], which increased your HP regeneration more based on the amount of Bleeding stacks inflicted on an opponent. [Drain] was an obvious choice, since it would be highly effective in keeping HP at a decent level through tough fights. However, neither of these choices would necessarily be that useful in the upcoming event, although [Killer Instinct] would.

A countdown appeared above in the panel to his left, counting down from five minutes until the event.

He looked over the [Weapon Enhancement] feature quickly, but it didn't seem to have much immediate value. It would create weapon customisations that applied to all of the user's weapons. However, creating any strong effect required many elements in a certain constellation, and at this level he didn't have that many options. At the moment, none of the options available would have any significant effect on the upcoming event, and he didn't have the time to plan ahead and see which options would lead to better gains in the future.

He skipped over that for now, and looked through his weapons and equipment to make sure that everything was in place.

Once the countdown ended, he was instantly teleported into a large lobby, ringed with white walls. The floor was white and wispy, like a cloud, but was surprisingly sturdy despite that.

He was surrounded by a group of players, who waited tensely for the upcoming event. While some looked on each other with suspicion or hostility, knowing that they were potential enemies, many chattered loudly due to nervous energy.

Panic perniciously spread through the lobby. Voices rose in pitch, and the cacophony of hopelessness and fear reverberated blackly off the walls like bats with springs in them placed in a pinball machine.

"So what the hell is this?" a girl next to Crucis shouted at anyone in earshot. "People can die, and they throw us into this death-trap? Really?"

"I think that the Hashin started this event," a male player nearby replied, stridently. "It's their fault."

Crucis turned, and saw that the female speaking was a blonde girl who wore heavy make-up, named [DellaB]. From her deep red lipstick and blanched cheeks, the event announcement had seemingly caught her in the middle of a grooming session.

"Yeah, but what a sense of timing, huh? I was getting ready to date a guy," she replied. "Now we're all going to die here! How's that for getting violently f-"

"Excuse me, keep it down. Don't say things like that, you'll scare everyone," a middle-aged woman next to her said.

After a huff, Della quietly assented.

Five minutes later, all voices suddenly went quiet. The lobby shuddered, and its upward movement seemed to end.

They were greeted by a deafening, deep caw from high above, that echoed gratingly across the area. Looking up, Crucis saw a massive, raven-like black bird soaring across the massive, brown-grey plains now in front of them. It had empty eyesockets, and drifted like a large, dead husk, occasionally keeping itself in flight with a cold, mechanical brush of its majestic wings.

It only hovered high and watched for now, seemingly waiting for the event to begin.

While the players huddled fearfully in place, Crucis swept his eyes around the panorama of the heavens. A high series of mountains hung in the distance, with some large, hulking dragon-like creatures clashing behind them.

Soon, a few players reluctantly began walking out into the hostile area. A tall, green post to the left towered into the sky. On it, Crucis saw a board containing the rules of the event, as well as a few signposts above this showing directions. He read the board carefully.

WORLD EVENT: AESIR-VANIR WAR REAWAKENS!

• During the event, all melee weapons will be enchanted with Eitr. They will cut through an opponent automatically. Fights will be fast-paced and will end quickly.

• To survive in the Heavens during this event, a human requires Divine Mana. This can be collected through killing either other players, or monsters of the Aesir and Vanir.

• Each player will be allocated a side: Aesir or Vanir. Monsters of the opposite persuasion will attack you. Monsters of each side will grow stronger based on how much Divine Mana the players of that side obtain.

• Divine Mana can also be used to facilitate movement, or form a temporary shield, as well as manipulating certain objects in the heavens. It is a part of the atmosphere and substance of the heavens, and can be used in various ways on your travels. This will not detract from your personal quantity of Divine Mana obtained, but you should be careful not to exhaust the store of Divine Mana which keeps you alive here.

• Before the event, your Divine Mana will be low, but will instantly restore if used.

• Killing Asuras was grant the player Asura's Blood, which will increase their primary stat. Be warned, all Asuras here are warriors looking to overrun or disrupt the heavens, and all of them are ready to fight.

• Any player can kill any other player, as long as they are not in the same party.

• You may only form parties of three. Once you have another member in your party, they cannot be expelled or leave.

• The Night Raven will hover over the battlefield searching for prey, picking specifically on those with low Divine Mana.

• The more players in a given space, the more likely that monsters will attack.

• Divine Mana will deplete naturally over time, and faster the longer that you have gone without a fight. If other players with the opposite Aesir/Vanir alignment are nearby, you will lose Divine Mana faster.

• Players who have a Donor VIP status can attend an event at the Apollo Amphitheatre before the event, where they will be granted rewards and buffs for the event.

• No use of Stealth or other invisibility skills.

• No use of ranged attacks in this zone.

• All buffs through spells have been reset when you arrived in this area.

• You will only be allowed to enter the main area when the event starts, and then you will have 10 minutes to explore before the preliminary stage ends and fighting is permitted.

Coming early here - by being part of the Assassin top 100 - had several advantages, especially in terms of being able to explore and to figure out the event before being plunged into it.

The signposts above showed a few directions, but only two major ones stood out, 'Plains of the Raven' to the right, and the 'Apollo Amphitheatre' to the left. An NPC up ahead was picking out players who were donors, and directing them towards the Apollo Amphitheatre in order to attend a special event for them. A semi-large crowd headed off in that direction.