Chapter 3: The Conspirators Alliance(1)

The Conspirators Alliance(1)

*Bing*

Dílis' relentless torrent of insults and profanity directed towards the system was interrupted by the familiar sound of a notification, more specifically a message.

[Blake: Hey man we've finished up here, coming your way]

Dílis smiled.

His previous anger had been washed away at the thought of boasting about his achievements to his teammates.

With a smile he replied.

[Dílis: Alright cool, I'll be waiting]

Dílis took one more look around the room before heading towards the exit.

He suddenly stopped as a thought crossed his mind.

Dílis looked back, before scurrying over towards the headless skeleton of Razerks' body whilst looking very embarrassed and attempted to reattach his head.

The end result was very unnatural, his head was placed at a 125-degree angle to the right, a direction that the head should not be able to go, unfortunately, this was the best he could do, so instead of embarrassing himself further, he decided to leave whilst muttering all types of apologies.

He started for the exit.

As Dílis was waiting for his teammates, he began thinking.

Should he tell his friends about what he had found?

He loved his group of friends and would put down his life for them, to they were irreplaceable existences in Dílis' life, however, when it came to loot, he knew that his friends didn't share his thought of equal distribution of the items found.

Dílis didn't know why they always hid their loot, he assumed they must have had a good reason, maybe they really needed the money, or maybe they just wanted better items, he didn't know.

One of the unspoken rules of Dílis' group was, no talking about themselves IRL.

This allowed them to properly set a boundary between their game and real-life selves, a practice employed by many groups all across Soulkin Online.

He had decided. He wouldn't tell them, he would keep this to himself.

Before Dílis could double back on his previous decision he heard a familiar voice shouting at him from down the caves tunnel.

"Heyyyy!! we're back," a man yelled, from a short distance away.

It was Blake, Dílis' teammate and the one who spotted the dungeon to begin with, followed by two people with their heads down.

"Hey find anything good?" Dílis asked, curious.

"Naw man, I ain't even sure this is a dungeon you know, I think it was just a normal cave," Blake answered, scratching his head.

"How so?" Dílis asked, puzzled.

"Well, get this right, we start walking, you know, searching for treasure and all that and we don't find anything, okay that's fine, so we keep walking all wary like, time passes and we don't see any monsters yeah, then before we knew it we had reached a dead end, nothing, no boss, no monsters, nothing."

"Huh? You sure?" Dílis replied, with genuine shock

He had thought that since he had found the Laboratory of the Grand-Sage they would have come across some sort of treasure, or defences at least.

"Yeah woe is us right, bloody unlucky ey, complete and utter waste of time."

He ended off the sentence with an awkward chuckle.

Dílis had heard that chuckle before, he knew what that chuckle meant.

He was lying.

"Hey, are you guys sure?" Dílis asked, eyeing Blakes bag, which looked slightly bigger than before.

"Obviously dude why would we lie to you!"

"No... I know you wouldn't do that...it's just...could you let me see your bag just to make sure. You know we always share the loot and all,", "justbeingcautious," he quickly tagged on to the end, before it upset him.

Too late.

"Yo dude, you're pissing me off right now, why wouldn't you trust us?" Blake asked, visibly frustrated

The two behind him joined in.

"Yeah!"

"That's right we're teammates aren't we?" they shouted, annoyed

"Well...um..haha yeah sorry for suspecting you, my bad," Dílis replied, sheepishly.

Typically Dílis would have pressed the topic, to no avail, however now he was doing the exact same thing to them, albeit for different reasons.

In the end, Dílis just decided to apologise, shutting down the conversation before they started asking questions.

'That was weird though,' Dílis thought to himself, as they made their way to the exit of the cave.

'Why was he so on edge?', he's never usually like that, maybe something happened recently.

Dílis train of thought was interrupted as he reached the exit to the cave.

"Argh," Dílis' eyes were assaulted by the light from the sun, blinding him for a brief moment, he had spent too much time in the cave.

"Bloody sun man, even in a game it's as annoying as ever," he thought to himself, as he flipped the sun the bird.

After recovering from the attack the sun just mounted on his eyes, he looked down to try and find the best way back down.

He had planned to continue grinding for a little while longer, before heading back to the nearest town and putting up the items they earned for auction.

As he looked down at the valley floor he could see a lot of mobs, rather small in size, but great in number.

He couldn't recognise which monsters they were as he was so high up, however since they had just recently arrived in The Great Divide, Dílis had surmised that they must be a new species not yet encountered.

Dílis had completely ruled out the thought of them being players as the only players of a high enough level to be here would be those of the Grand guilds, those that are great enough to be a part of the top 20 in the guild rankings.

Dílis whistled at the sight

"Yeah that's not happening," he muttered, thinking of what to do.

Dílis started to turn around, hoping to get his groups opinion on what to do to get out of this predicament that they had found themselves in.

"Hey, guys come get a look at th-"

*Bing*

[HP [-125] ]

'Keurgh'

Falling.

Dílis was falling.

Why?

He was pushed.

As he was turning around, one of his teammates rammed into him sending him plummeting to the bottom of the divide.

*thud*

*Bing*

[HP [-1876] ]

'Argh!'

It hurts...

God it hurts

Dílis' whole body was in pain after falling from the entrance to the cave.

"Bloody hell"

Dílis glanced over to the notification window.

"crap, I've got less than a quarter of my health left."

Dílis groaned as he tried to stand up

Normally one would have broken at least a couple bones, however since this was a game he got off with a notification and a very, very sore body.

Dílis tried to stand up on shaky legs, before relenting and using the longsword sheathed on his back for support.

He analyzed the situation in front of him.

Dílis had gone from very confused to furious as he started piecing things together.

Why had his teammates pushed him?

Dílis had been struggling to come up with an answer yet here it was practically presenting him the reason atop a silver platter.

The answer took the form of a young, good looking man, seemingly in his twenties, with blonde, swept-back hair and pale blue eyes staring at him with a very smug expression plastered on his stupid, satisfied face.

Aaron.

Dílis started getting flashbacks to his previous encounters with Aaron.

He had approached Dílis and the other members of the Invisible Hands to try and recruit them into his guild which was ranked fourth out of the twenty Grand Guilds.

The Pursuers of Chaos, ranked fourth out of the twenty Grand Guilds had recently been feeling pressured.

The gap between the ranked fifth and fourth guilds has been gradually decreasing and, knowing they had to do something, their guild leader, Aaron, wanted the Invisible Hands, dubbed, 'The bees that sting the Grand', by the users of Soulkin, to join them.

When asked, Dílis had declined, Stating that he had no interest in fame and that he didn't want to take away the money, which could be gained through sponsors, away from others, as he didn't want to become anyone's enemy.

The title 'The bees that sting the Grand', given to them by the users, was created after the group started going around, rewriting the dungeon clear time records.

A harmless gesture made by Dílis to encourage the general player base to not be afraid and give their all to surpass the Grand Guilds and to show that they weren't unbeatable.

Dílis had unknowingly been making enemies with many of the top guilds through these actions.

Aaron had tried his best to, whenever he could, badger him with invitations to join his guild, which he had declined.

Dílis' teammates had clearly expressed interest at the offer, however, Dílis thought he had managed to persuade them to decline... or at least that's what he thought.

He had heard rumours that the people he had thought were his friends were meeting with Aaron in secret, however, he had just brushed it off as just that, a rumour.

Dílis was pissed.

Pissed that his friends had betrayed him.

Pissed that no-one was going to help him.

Pissed...that there was no possible way out of the situation presented to him.

He was either going to die or succumb to the demands of Aaron.

The entire Chaos guild was in front of him, all lined up like they were about to conduct a raid.

The Soulkin, intermingled with their masters in the crowd, bared their fangs, claws and beaks at him preparing for a fight.

The sight of it all was too hilarious for Dílis to bear. What started off as a small smile ended in him doubled over in laughter, he couldn't stop himself from bursting out in uncontrollable laughter at the sight of it all.

The members of Chaos, confused by his actions, started mumbling amongst themselves, as the man in front of them looked completely crazy to them, imagine having so much confidence in yourself that you could still laugh at the situation.

Dílis however, wasn't confident at all, in fact, he was scared shitless, he had a quarter of his HP left, a companion that, while he would hate to admit it, was useless in combat and was against one of the Largest Guilds in all of Soulkin Online prepared like they were about to face a boss monster.

He couldn't help but not laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

Aaron pretended to clear his throat before giving Dílis an ultimatum, join them, or die here.

Dílis thought for a moment.

A chance!

It wouldn't save him and it wouldn't help him in the long run, it was more a matter of pride which could not be ignored.

"Hmm," Dílis took a moment before replying to him as to make it seem like he was considering the offer

"How much?" Dílis asked while glancing up at Aaron.

Aaron smiled, a big cheesy grin, before composing himself and replying in as dignified a manner he could muster.

"10k once you've signed the contract and a subsequent 6k per month, that's what I offered them," he gestured up to the cliff, where you could vaguely make out the outline of his former allies.

"15k now then 7k per month and you've got yourself a deal," Dílis replied nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders whilst looking away.

Truthfully this was already more than Dilis typically made by a good amount.

He was a minimalist, as long as he had a roof over his head, food and the capsule to play Soulkin with the wifi to play it, he was content. All of Dílis' earnings had come from selling the items Dílis obtained through Soulkin.

"Sorry?"

"What? Did you think that I'm worth the same as those idiots, you must be joking," he raised his eyebrow in surprise.

"What makes you think I would spend that much on you? you guys aren't even in the rankings yet."

"Hmm true we aren't, however, you were already willing to pay a similar amount, my guess is you trust in our abilities and can see our potential."

"HAHAHA, I like it, a man that knows when he's outmatched but still makes the best out of his situation," he looked back and forth between his companions and Dílis while gesturing between them as if to say, 'try and be more like this guy ey', or something along those lines.

Dílis laughed.

"Well then pleasure doing business with ya."

Dílis extended his hand toward Aaron, whilst limping over to him, the pain caused by the fall still affecting him.

As he got closer he was stopped by a lone arrow soaring through the sky, planting itself at his feet.

Dílis and Aaron both looked over to where the arrow had come from, it was the Vice-Guild Leader, The Deadshot, Lance, known throughout the game for his deadly accuracy.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" Aaron screeched, discarding the dignified look he had been going for as he glared at Lance.

Lance calmly responded by motioning towards the sword in Dílis' hand.

"Tsk...mind your own business...I can handle myself," Aaron muttered, turning his attention back to Dílis.

"Ah, my bad, my bad, for a second there I thought you were gonna shoot me, hahaha," Dílis laughed, awkwardly.

Dílis threw away his longsword to the side before raising his arms slightly to show he was unarmed.

Aaron moved forward with no hesitation towards Dílis after seeing the discarded sword, sheathing his own sword, before raising his hand in response to Dílis' previous effort.

Dílis, while looking into Aarons pale blue eyes, thanked him, grasping his hand tightly, telling him that he wouldn't need to get his friends to push him off a cliff the next time they made a deal.

Aaron responded lightly, reminding him off all the times he had been rejected, tightening his grip slightly.

Dílis responded by saying that if he was offered those numbers from the beginning there wouldn't have been any problems.

Aaron was slightly disappointed by this, he had thought Dílis was different but as soon as he was shown a little bit of money he started wagging his tail like a dog, this wasn't the impression he had gotten from the man.

The disappointment that had manifested was quickly replaced with a sense of accomplishment and pride as he had finally won over the man that he had been trying to recruit for months on end to no avail.

Aaron broke off the handshake abruptly, before turning on his heel and walking away.

"Right let's go sign that contract then shall we?" Aaron chirped.

He motioned for Dílis to follow him.

Aaron heard Dílis say something as the rest of the guild members started to make their way towards the two, but as he was about to turn around, to ask what he had said-

*Bing*

[HP [-1427] ]

[You have been stabbed in a vital spot, you are in a critical state]

"Huh?" Aaron didn't have any time to react.

*Crack*

A black screen greeted the stunned Aaron. The words YOU ARE DEAD being the only thing in sight.

The words soon dissipated, replaced instead with a countdown 23:59:57 and decreasing, the login penalty one receives after death.

"My...levels...wha?" he trailed off, he couldn't process what had just happened, never mind formulate a coherent sentence.

Once a player dies in Soulkin Online said player will experience a loss of five levels and is barred from logging in for a day, this is a heavy blow to the Rankers especially as they are constantly in a fierce battle amongst those of which also trying to climb the ranks.

It was here, Aaron was trying to figure out what had just happened to him.

After a brief moment, he realised what had happened.

"That son of b****!"