31. Blaire's Retreat

"What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right." — Albert Einstein

After walking for what seemed like an eternity, the group finally arrived at a small village. This was no ordinary village but the sight of the last dungeon for the day, a place shrouded in mystery and intrigue.

As soon as they loaded into the dungeon instance, they saw a merchant in tatters limping away from the village; when they arrived near him, he spoke with a depressed undertone.

"You must leave strangers; the bandit leader Blaire has occupied the village, plundering what he can and committing all kinds of horrors. It is not a place for good people like yourselves to venture into."

Leaving after saying that, Eagle's Light turned to Holly.

"This dungeon is very disturbing, so stay focused on the fighting and don't get distracted by the background sounds."

Hearing this, Paul agreed; this dungeon was the first step into a very dark part of the game. 

In Harbinger's Call, there were criminal factions that did the same bad things that sometimes happened in real life, gory and violent crimes; if you paid too close attention to this dungeon, you would notice many incredibly disturbing things.

The rest of the party also turned grim. For most normal people, this dungeon was very mentally problematic. On the other hand, the dungeon introduced players to the fact that the game was very realistic with the story and did not shy away from almost any topic. 

Soon after entering the village, they came upon the scene of a group of villagers being robbed and beaten. The enemies were not very strong in the first fight, and the entire battle lasted a short time; looking at the damage sheet afterward, everyone was somewhat somber.

Now that they were extremely close to the enemies' level, the relative damage they dealt was noticeably lower.

They would be going through the dungeon slower than before. 

It took them over 15 minutes to get to the first mini-boss, a shirtless man who radiated violence and cruelty.

After killing a group of bandits, he came out of a nearby shop covered in sweat, staring them down.

"A little elf and her friends want to stop us? If I catch you here, I won't have to give you to Blaire; come here, I will make you scream like you wouldn't believe."

Although the lines seemed somewhat ridiculously villainous, the man's gaze at the party was enough to make them incredibly uncomfortable, especially someone like Claire, who stayed out of most public interaction and had never been looked at like that before.

She was shuddering under the fierce gaze that seemed incredibly realistic.

Seeing the scene, Paul broke the silence.

"This guy isn't very hard; just don't get hit by his long cast time stuns, and you will be fine."

Snapping the others from their reverie, Bob went forward, taunting the boss, and the fight began.

In truth, the fight was not any more challenging than previous fights; as long as they avoided the boss's problematic mechanic, it took an extra minute or so to kill him. 

After the fight was over, Claire felt like she had overcome something mentally, not just virtual, as she looked at the vulgar bandit's corpse. 

Only then did she hear certain sounds coming from the background that made her turn pale. This allowed her to suddenly understand why they had not seen any unharmed people in the village since arriving.

As they moved on, a particular emotion settled on the party, except for Paul. It was not that he did not feel the situation was reprehensible, but he was desensitized.

In truth, this dungeon is more straightforward than other dungeons at the same level. 

Whether the dungeon was designed to be a somewhat easy win for the player to acclimate to the cruelty of the game or not was something he knew; all he cared about was whether or not they had enough DPS. 

As the dungeon continued, the group's players became increasingly determined, singularly focused on destroying the evil force that had ruined the villagers' lives. Despite knowing it was a game, it was strange for NPCs to act so morally righteous.

After close to an hour, they reached the final boss.

"Ok, this boss is essentially a massive DPS check; he has four sections of HP, and every time he changes phases, a woman named Ruth will take the field and begin channeling a large-scale heal that heals him to full if we cannot stop her. As long as we can do enough damage to stop her from casting the spell, the fight will continue to the next phase until we kill him."

Hearing Bob Holly was somewhat dumbfounded.

"Why would a woman be working with these people?"

Looking over, Paul answered with a sigh.

"She could be brainwashed, not care, be into this kind of thing, or be hired and look at the money and ignore it. It doesn't matter. We just need to kill the boss and finish the dungeon; I don't think we want to be here longer than we need." 

Nodding along, Bob started the fight, instantly taunting the boss, a giant of a man named Blaire, the namesake of the dungeon. 

"Who would have thought that stopping here to get away from the Emerald Enclave army would result in running into you guys? Since you came, don't think of leaving!"

With the somewhat cartoonish line from the boss, the fight started.

Earlier, when Paul had answered Holly, it was not that he didn't know the female healer's motivation; he had taken the opportunity to tell her what a variety of characters in similar situations used as excuses or justifications within the game. 

Although the evil enemies in this dungeon were somewhat comical, that would not always be the case. The dungeon was simply an introduction to the darkness that permeated a large part of the game.