Chapter 18

  The cold reaches of the south

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  Authors note:

  Did you really think i woul stop this amzing series :)

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  The dual mountain peaks that surrounded the small little village stood like sentinels against the southern skyline with their jagged peaks and pristine glaciers and turned them momentarily orange as the last rays of the dying light reached them.

  In a small cottage , the last remains of the town , with no souls to attend to the abondend structers the survivors of a group of adventurers had taken shelter against the blizzard that was raging outside.

  The whistling sound the fast wind made as it hit the cottage was eerly shrill and utterly terrifiying almost as if the roof of the abondend house could fly away any second leaving them defensless against the destructive forces of the natural disaster that was blowing outside.

  " Erica , stack up some more wood will you? Iz is freezing." A male tried to make himself noticeable.

  The male , a dwarf , had a long brown beard with golden hair ontop tied into a long ponytail that reached to the base of his neck. He was sitting in a corner and had a little girl in his lap that was cuddling up to him.

  By appearance alone one would think this human girl would be 10 or maybe 11 , judging by her short yellowish twintails and the pin of a rabbit holding these twintails. She had slender arms as well as legs and her chest would be best described as ... below average.

  Even her height that was as tall , standing , as the dwarfs indicated at a girl that had still room to develope.

  " Yeah maybe she will grow a little bit from the heat , I think she would like that. " Erica said.

  Erica was a dark haired female that let her long curls fall all the way down to her waist and she always complained about them but in the end she did not cut them. Her eyes were big and round and her nose petite. Her lips were at the moment slightly blue but that was due to the cold they had been enduring because of the quest they had received.

  " Ahh shudap , your way older then me if i was as old as you i would have a even better body then yours! " The little girl Izabell shouted in an angry tone at Erica.

  Now both Erica and Damion smiled at the remark. As Izabell or Iz for a nickname saw that her head became incredibly red , not out of emberassment out course. She shouted and roared at the insult she had just received.

  " One day i'll show you my juicy body then u can cry and beg for forgvieness!!! " Iz shouted.

  " Yes yes , little sister will grow into a faboulus girl one day. After she gets rid of that attitude of course. " Erica said in a calm manner.

  The intensity of the red color in Izabells face intensified even more and if one watched closely they could see bubbles forming at the front of her lips. Erica and Damion both laughed so hard the roaring blizzard outside was blended out.

  .............................

  All 3 of them logged out and meet at the kitchen table in the real world.

  " I hope that storm will pass soon. " Daniel said while his sisters were preparing a meal.

  Daniel had like his character blond hair that was tied in a pony tail. With his glasses and his light frame he looked incredibly nerdy , but he wasn't. Sure he liked books but his favourite hobby was biking. With a street racing bycicle under his behind he was the fastest cycler in the whole state.

  He was about 24 years of age and was about to finish college as a lawyer. He already even had a job offer by 2 famous companys thats why he could slack off and play the new game > The new begging < with his sisters.

  His sister with the curly black hair she also had in the game , Erica used her real life name in game as well. She was about 20 and had just started college. Now the youngest one of them Izabell , staggering 16 years of age , in-game and Isabella in the real world was just like her character.

  " Yeah , we need to get that quest done. Especially that already so many have died for it. " Erica spoke her mind.

  It has been a ardicious journey through the snow planes of Ergoth , the southern most uncharted Kingdom that was locked in permafrost. This plain was so cold that even the earth itself was covered in a thick crust of ice.

  Most of their group had died to exhaustion after they had suffered a severe Cold or fevers. Nobody was prepared for it but somehow the 3 siblings had survived against all odds and were about to complete the quest.

  " Well 2 hours have passed lets get going! " Isabella said in a excited tone.

  Even though she tried to act like a grown-up , despite her small body and young age , she was always overly excited when it came to TnB. The older siblings smiled at eachother after the dishes were cleaned and headed back to their own capsules.

  ............................

  " Ah finally the Blizzard is gone! " The Dwarf said as he stretched out his arms.

  Around them was newly stacked snow what made it hard to walk , as the dwarf sometimes suddenly disappeard completly and his sisters had to save him out of the cold prison.

  Everytime they pulled him out he cursed and muttered which was received with giggles from his sisters and him blushing red of emberassment.

  Even though his sister had the same height , with robes instead of the heavy armor the Dwarf wore she didn't sink in as far as Damion did.

  After 3 more miles , which took them over 5 hours due to the snow , they finally reached their destination.

  * Tring*

  [window}Quest , balance out the powers part 1 , has been updated.

  Progress 1/2

  You have succesfully reached Mount Belegoth in the long forgotten and unclaimed Kingdom of Ultharia

  [/window]

  * tring*

  " Guys have you seen this? There are 2 ???? rewards waiting for us when we compelte this quest! " Iz shouted without even trying to contain her excitement.

  She was dancing on the snow , sometimes even hopping in the air and soon she broke through the powdery surface of snow and ended up cursing and muttering like the dwarf Damion had done before.

  Now her companions teased her instead on which her face became deeply flushed with a crimson color , out of rage and spite.

  As they proceeded through the ancient looking ruins , that strangely enough were not covered in the perma ice layer , little did they know something was following them.

  ....................

  Erica was rushing forward with both of her swords. As soon as she entered the range to attack the furry beast in front of her she performed a 360* motion and while doing so she sliced the massive creatures belly multiple times.

  Her head was spinning a bit due to the quick motion and she was unable to defend against massive claws that were heading her way. As the claws drew closer she got pushed out of the way and a loud * thump * accompied by a screeching sound was audiable inside the icy halls of this underground mace.

  Damion the dwarf with raised shield pushed her out of the way and blocked the beasts strike easily. He still received - 10% of his maximum health but that was to be expected as the beasts level was 200.

  A white furred Yeti sometimes attacked the group if they weren't careful and woke the creatures they tried to sneak past.

  With the combination attacks of the axe and shield using Stoneguard Damion and the double 2-h sword berserker Erica the beast lay dead at their feet after 10 minutes of battle. Naturally Iz also did her part .. but her class was a little ... strange.

  She was a oracle , this is how this adventure started after all. From an ' unknown source of origin ' Iz had received this quest when the 3 cleared out a dungeon filled with ice monsters. Iz was neither a real mage nor was she a real priest , but she could heal and deal magic damage at the same time.

  With their teamwork they achieved the incredible feat of slaying a lvl 200 yeti already multiple times and just now they broke out of the ' small fry' bracket as other players called it.

  Even though the game had been out for over 12 weeks now ( ingame time) , not many people had breached lvl 199. Especially not the humans. They were entraped directly after the 4 weeks period inside of the game to a town of beginners. After that they got a house assigned that ' adopted ' them and further intensified their training for battle or knowledge what ever one would take for 2 more weeks.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  The evil races were thrown out of the beginner towns after the 4 weeks where a band of Draconians , ready for war , or a clan of orcs simply took the new players with them , which resulted in the current rankings.

  The top 10000 players that breached the lvl 200 , with the leading one being lvl 215 at the moment , were all orcs or draconians. After that , due to a certain event quest they had encountered , were 500 Elfs with level 185-195. Then all the ' small fry ' as the Veterans called them.

  This small fry was in the range of 160 and below. But the trio had just broke out of that loop as they reached lvl 180. This was the breaking point , as the high lvled players called it , where one would become a true adventurer.

  As the trio , that had played together ever since Damion left the mountain Kingdom of Ungdirbar and made his way to the southern human dukedome of Jasmintall , all reached the level up at the same time they were high fiving each other.

  They decided to rest and Iz started up a fire , with her magic she ignited some dry wood Erica had in her ivnentory , and hung a iron pot with a tripod over the flames. She filled in some water , rabbit meat that came from Damion and some vegetalbes she added to it. She cocked it and let the soup stock up until it became a legitimate stew.

  All 3 were staring , with depraved eyes , at the cooking stew. The last time they ate was quite a while ago and the satiety bar was low which resulted in their hunger. But after 15 more minutes a *tring* broke their stares.

  " Hehe , success! " Iz said proud at which Damion clapped to applaud her.

  This was a standard ritual they had. Iz for some reason as she tried to learn the cooking skill had acquired a rather ... random skill instead.

  But now after she had reached ( 450/1000 ) Mana cooking she almost never poisend their food. Especially Damion always suffered at the beginning when Iz had acquired this skill. She couldn't directly understand which dish needed how much mana and her identification skill lacked severily so she neither could check if it was poisenous.

  So there was only one way left. Erica , with her superior strength as a berserker as well as her high agility and speed put Damion in a arm bar , and sometimes even a choke hold if she felt like it , while Iz poured down the ' maybe ' poisenous food his throat.

  In the first months after they had meet up so all 3 siblings could play together poor Damion died 3 times and for a while he lacked in level due to those deaths. Everytime he died he would loose 10% of his levels he had already gotten.

  With some sweat and effort , but mostly with lack of sleep , he caught back up to his real life sisters. Nowadays at least Iz knew when it was poisenous food so nobody had died ... at least not by accident.

  Yes little sisters could be scary from time to time , Damion realized soon enough.

  They killed a few more yetis , which each gave them about 10% experience , they leveld up twice more during their quest to search for the altar.

  After Iz had received the quest there was a huge argument between the three , which ended up as ever discussion , 2 girls siding against the poor dwarf. So they soon searched for more people to take the adventure.

  A lot of people gathered for the quest , as it was a chained quest with the difficulty of rank > C < and normally , at least without really good luck , the best anybody could find in the region of Jasmintall dukedom , a part of the Human Kingdom > Grandia < , was a rank D quest , but those were not chained.

  Chained quests in TnB always had awesome rewards so with 100 people they started the adventure. After 3 days in the Icy plains their group had shrunk to 50 people. 40 died of a cold or fever and were locked from playing for 4 days in game time. They also were resurected in the last town they had visited.

  Which was in a unknown Kingdoms border town to Ultharia. Still from the border to the point there were on would take another 3 days , but with the 4 day penalty catching up was literally pointless.

  The remaining 10 man deemed this quest un solveable and just set out to make their way back to the united Human Kingdom.

  In the next few days yetis attacked the party during the night and with great effort the 3 yetis were killed but it cost the grou dearly. 30 more players had died but the remaining players became a lot stronger.

  Every night the lower leveld Yetis attacked with their level 180 and killed 1 or 2 more players each night as they were attracted by the fires the group ingited during the night to hold them warm.

  After 8 more days only the 3 were left and they adapted to the situation. As Erica had the tailoring skill she used the yetis hide and made a long and wide piece of yeti leather. Now they looked for caves to hide in during nights and everytime they found a suitable place this piece of yeti leather was used to cover the entrance and block out the shine from the fire.

  It was effective and they weren't attacked anymore during the night. So the rest of the 4 weeks they spent before finding the twin mountains of Ergoth they didn't fight unless they wanted to.

  The delibaretly left the yeti leather off and attracted a pack of 3 yetis every night multiple times. But Damion , the thinker of the group , told the girls to hide outside in the snow with him. As soon as the yetis entered the cave and had to cramp together due to their massive size the trio attacked.

  They were dealt with quickly and everyone was happy. Erica got a few hides everytime , Damion got xperience and gold and Izabell used the rabbit meat the yetis dropped , or carried around as provisions , to make food.

  Another week passed as they ventured deeper and deeper through the frozen maze they soon found a large open cavern and in the middle of it a bright , blue , burning flame was floating in a offering bowl and as they approached it a familiar * tring* was audiable

  " Hello to you brave adventurers and thank you beautiful Oracle to find your way deep into this maze. " A female voice resounded from the bowl.

  At first the trio looked around nervously but soon they realized that the voice originated only from the bowl itself and no soul was around.

  " Uhm hello? " Damion the most outgoing spoke up.

  A quick giggle followed before the voice resumed.

  " I am Lilith the Godess of jugdement and Ice. Once again i thank you for venturing deep into the once glorious Kingdom of Ultharia. " The godess started.

  Now with a flicker of the blue flame a beautiful figure came into view.

  If one would look objectivly she was a Elf beyond the word of beautifull , smooth skin that belittled the word Alabaster skin but the tone was more bluish then a natural color. Her lips were full and her face was shining with a cute but dignified apperance.

  Everything about her was perfect her long and slender neck. Her long and pointy ears. The waist was slim and the chest just below average but still very full in appearance. Her hips were round and her figure just simply put perfect.

  But what surprised the group the most were the nine furry golden tails that grew from her buttocks , but only to Damion her stark naked appearance.

  " Even though i have summoned you here your prize will have to wait until you have freed me from the shakles the dispicable god Palanthalos with the help of the other 5 gods has placed upon me! " She continiued her speech.

  Erica noticed that Damion was oggling up the naked godess very closely so she hit him , very hard , across his skalp and took the initiative to talk to her.

  " Yes godess , how can we be of service? " She asked while taking a knee.

  Now the godess giggled again.

  " Well before that we have to wait for the last member of your party! " The godess proclaimed in an amused tone.