“Minions, come here!” the black cave with walls covered in a black volcanic stone shook under the deep and loud calling of the dragon standing outside. The dark smoke was spreading out, filling the spruce forest outside of the cave.
It wasn’t long before figures wearing black mantles and dragon-shaped masks walked out. There were only a few of them.
‘Most of them are away or offline, damn it… I will probably need to recruit more of them soon.’ the dragon’s reptilian eyes immediately fell on the player that was in red, looking out of the place with everyone else wearing black. They were looking at the dragon that gained slight golden colour in confusion while being quiet. Vesuvius immediately assumed that they were talking with their private messages.
“Listen to me, my minions! I am going to organise an expedition, and you will go and steal or buy as much cattle or sheep as possible and escort it upstream along the river. I will give you cover from the air and take care of most monsters. Take time to prepare!” Vesuvius was more than aware that he would have to escort his minions after seeing the crowds of monsters infesting the mountains. He easily avoided dangers just by flying high enough, but if he wanted to get a large number of animals to the other side of the mountains, that would be a hard and long journey.
“And this will be your reward!” Vesuvius turned his head towards the sky and opened his mouth, orange light passing through the thick smoke around him and growled, “Graaaaaah!”.
The players instinctively took a step back and also turned their heads toward the sky. Soon a majestic beast covered in black volcanic armour with cracks filled with lava and lightning crackling around appeared, gliding in wide spirals towards the ground. Its massive scaled wings merged with front limbs gleamed in the sun as it slowly descended and landed on the ground, its clawed hind legs making trails in the soft forest soil.
The dracodactyl opened its mouth and growled with droplets of magma flying out. All of the players immediately rushed towards it, probably bombing it with analyses. The dracodactyl opened its mouth again and growled, making the player retreat backwards.
Loud bickering immediately erupted between them, “What is dracodactyl?”
“Never heard of it being part of the game. Is it some secret?”
“It looks cool and strong.”
Suddenly Vesuvius stomped his leg, and his deep voice reverberated out, quieting all of the players, “This beast is the personal creation of my great self, that I made after years of magical experiments! I need the cattle to breed more of them! Help me with it, and you will have access to them as your mounts in the future! “
“Ehmm, you draconic majesty… can it shoot fire?” the player in red walked out of the crowd, pointing at the dracodactyl, his arm trembling in anticipation.
“Yes, it can!”
“In that case, I will go even to the end of this world to get that cattle!” the pyromaniac became ecstatic, trembling all over his body while launching a fireball into the sky. All of the players around him immediately backed away as if he had a contagious disease while blabbering on their own.
“So this is another resource unique to this faction, together with that blood.”
“And definitely one of the coolest ones. How can stinky holy water compare with wyrm blood, and how can pegasuses compare to this beast!”
In LOMM, players often choose their faction based on the unique resources of a faction. The mage supremacy faction, for example, gave easy access to more spells and lots of magical equipment. In the meantime holy church of light gave access to a supply of holy water, sanctified weapons and holy and light attributed equipment.
Vesuvius, who knew this all, grinned under the smoke, ‘It is not enough for my faction just to be cool and stylish. I need to give benefits so that they will not feel like missing stuff compared to other factions.’
POV Elven Runic Enchanter:
Everything around her was dark as she spent who knew how long muffled inside of the stinky old sack. Finally, the sack stopped trembling, meaning that it stopped moving. Soon someone untied it with the orange light of fire entering inside.
She immediately crawled out of the sack, looking around her. She stood in a green clearing in a forest. It was still dark outside, with only light sources being moonlight passing through the leaves of trees and a campfire burning in the middle of the clearing. For a while, she only heard the cracking of the fire and the buzzing of a night insect. Her body was trembling, expecting some cultist to grab her and tie her to some ritual table, where they would slowly and painfully gut her up.
The appetizing smell of meat kept drifting from a hare roasting on the campfire. Five cultists stood around, wearing creepy dragon masks and black mantles.
“Eat. You need to gather strength after tonight’s events.” the cultist, with a bow over his shoulder, pointed at the roasting hare. Then he put down his mask and hood, revealing a young man with an extremely weird haircut. To the horror of the young elf, the curved horns still remained in their original place on his head, radiating heat out of their glowing surface.
‘Damn it, is he a demon? Do they want me to be at my strongest when they sacrifice me?’ She didn’t move and remained rooted to the ground, searching for any way to escape.
Suddenly the fifth cultist with a feminine figure, wearing a brass mask and with horns poking out of her head, walked towards her, “What were you thinking, why have you kidnapped some child… We need a runic enchanter, not a child…” she looked at the elf with her brass mask, sending a shiver through the enchanter’s body.
“Look, she is runic enchater. Look at her ears. She is an elf. Another enchanter was so old that he would probably die during travel.”
In the meantime, hope returned to the enchantress after she heard that they were looking for a runic enchanter, ‘It is very likely that they need my services in another way than just being a sacrifice. In that case, I must convince them that I am capable.’. She shivered thinking about a situation where she failed to persuade them that she was a runic enchanter and ended up as a sacrifice during some evil ritual.
She straightened her back and suppressed her nervosity, forming her face into a professional smile, “I am runic enchanter, and good on top of that. As an elf, I can guarantee the quality of my work.”