Chapter 173 Sneaky Sneaky...
A rooster tail of ice chips and particles flew out from the shield as the makeshift sled careened down the mountainside at neck breaking speeds.
"Lone! We either jump now or make colorful decorations on that ice wall." Dave said.
"Don't worry about me! I can blink away!"
"Alright! Here goes nothing!"
Dave used [Immortal Apparition] only a dozen meters from the ice wall and teleported to the side of the ice wall.
Lone 'blinked' away, following Dave. The shield continued until it smashed into the ice wall, creating a spiderweb of cracks in the frozen roadblock, or 'slide-block.'
"You could have warned me about the slope!" Dave scolded her as he went to retrieve his shield. The ground was slippery but he made his way to the ice wall and struggled to pull his shield out.
"Oh c'mon, that was fun! Do you play Need for Speed?"
"I'm not a fan of racing games," he said.
She shook her head sadly, "Oh Davey. Nevermind."
"So now what? Where is the person you need to meet?"
"You see this passage?" Lone pointed to an ice tunnel hidden to the side of the ice wall.
"We cross through to enter the yetis domain. There are a lot of them and we gotta be careful, we can't aggro more than two at once." Lone warned.
Dave nodded and followed as Lone led the way into the tunnel. Eventually they exited the tunnel into a valley with steep icy walls.
"We have to get across the valley, but we won't make it to the other side if we're seen. The yetis will bombard us with boulders if they spot us. They lurk at the top of the walls all around the valley. So drink this."
Lone gave Dave two potions, one was for invisibility and the other was a sound-muffling potion.
"These potions will only help us hide from the yetis on the clifftops. If we run into a yeti here at ground level it will see our footsteps in the snow. A fight here will bring a lot of unwanted attention."
Dave drank the potions, his body turned transparent and his boots took on a blue hue. Lone drank her potions and the two of them moved across the valley planning their face-off with the yetis.
"The yetis have crazy regen rates. They can regenerate entire limbs in minutes. We have to kill them fast or they will call for help."
"I have good DPS, but blitzing a level 250 mob won't be easy for me. Especially if it regenerates."
"We use fire, I remember you got a skill with fire in it, that [Dragon Ball] and the one you burnt the tengu's face with."
"Yeah, but the [Ray of Flame] skill has a long cooldown, but no worries, my gauntlets are imbued with fire," Dave answered.
"Good, fire nullifies their regeneration.
But we can't fight our way through this valley, we gotta be stealthy. This is just the first area, we need to go even further to finish my quest."
"You mean the person you are looking for isn't even here?"
"No. The quest NPC is in an area packed with yetis, and we need to kill them one by one."
Invisibility potions reduce the player's speed by 50%, causing them to walk at a slow pace. When the two reached the end of the valley, Lone stopped and pointed up.
"You see that?"
Dave looked at the ice pillar that extended from the valley floor to the top.
"We need to climb the pillar, but there's a yeti patrolling the area at the top. We will climb halfway and see if the Yeti is there or not. as long as the invisibility potion is still active it won't spot us."
"Okay. What are we waiting for?"
"You first," Lone smiled.
Dave shrugged and walked up the pillar, slowly and steadily, his eyes locked on the top verifying if there was no yetis there.
When they were halfway, a yeti suddenly appeared at the top of the pillar. Dave inspected it.
Yeti
Level: 275
HP: 375,000
Tier: Epic
Damage: 20,000-30,000
DN: 5,000
MA: -2,000
Skills:
[Beast Roar] dazes all enemies in a 5 meter radius around the Yeti.
[Hot Blood] the yeti passively regenerates 1% of its HP every second
[Chomp] causes [Frostbite] effect, freezing the target's bloodstream and suspending their stamina regeneration for 60 seconds.
Any attack on the target afflicted with [Frostbite] effect does double the base damage.
Bestiary:
The yetis are creatures of the cold, at home in environments of snow and ice. Aggressive and territorial they do not tolerate any intruders.
Yeti blood is an essential ingredient in some of the more powerful health potions. The properties of the blood is one of the reasons why they are so hard to kill.
The yeti looked like a white, four-armed gorilla with a spreading crown of antlers. The face was a mix of human and toad, the wide mouth full of sharp, uneven fangs.
"Well, that's ugly!" Dave said.
"Look who's talking," Lone replied, "I think it's cute. Look how fluffy it is, I'd cuddle it to pieces!"
"Okay. All joking aside, we need to get past it."
"It should leave in a moment, we can go up then," Lone replied.
"The invisibility potion will be wearing off soon. Do you have more?"
"No potions, The shop didn't have any others for sale. I hope he leaves before then. If not, we will have to take the slopes again."
Dave didn't like the thought of taking the slide again.
The yeti luckily turned back and left before the invisibility potions wore off. They took the chance to go up the pillar. Dave saw several yetis asleep, with the exception of a few that patrolled the area.
On the opposite side of where the yeti roamed was steep wall of ice.
"Alright, we need to go past this wall before the yeti comes back," Lone pointed at a wall.
"Your quest has a lot of climbing," Dave grumbled as he looked at the high wall.
"I know you don't like heights, but this is the only way. Alright, I'll go up first, follow my lead."
Lone grabbed on one of the many ice protrusions poking out of the ice wall and began climbing.
He mimicked Lone's movements, following her up the wall.
"I think the yeti is coming back," Dave said.
"Yeah, that's normal," Lone said over the wind, "If we are fast enough it won't notice us."
"We've been vertical climbing or hiking up mountains since we left the village. I haven't killed a single mob. This is a pretty lame quest."
"It's a hunter's legacy quest, so agility and dexterity are tested. Don't your legacy quests always have something to do with death?"
"We are almost at the top now, so be ready!" Lone encouraged the draugr.
The wind was too strong so Dave had to shout. "Alright!"
Lone reached the top first and waited for Dave. The wind was much stronger there.
Dave dragged himself onto the clifftop a few seconds after.
He thought that it might be another slope, or that they would need to go down. It was a huge area with several glaciers spread across the ice land.
Yetis were roaming about in the area. Dave did a quick headcount and came up with about forty yetis.
"Man, it's going to take a lot of time to kill them all. And what's up with this damn cold, my beard is has ice in it." Dave brushed the frost crusting his beard only for it to freeze again almost immediately.
Lone laughed at the sight of Dave's frosted beard.
"We don't need to kill them all, we need to get past them. I keep dying right between those two glaciers there," Lone pointed, "The yetis were just too tough for me to handle."
"Why didn't you bring more players to help you?" asked Dave "You have friends in the Devis."
"Not everyone has time to help a lowbie like me. Most of the high-level players I know are doing quests or dungeon runs for the guild. I brought some level 200 friends with me before but we still didn't make it past the yetis guarding the glaciers"
"What makes you think I will be any more help than your friends?" asked Dave as he stroked his frost coated beard.
"You are Mr. Skeletal," Lone grinned at him.
"Alright, let's get going. The path looks clear I think we can make it to the glacier before we are spotted."