The next week and a half were spent gearing up and readying a large supply of health potions for the endurance battle. Elvici along with some higher level crafters plundered the wilderness for strong alchemical ingredients and enchantment runes, spending countless hours of flower and plant picking. Hagtard enlisted a few other blacksmiths to handle weapon and armor crafting, many of whom were specialists.

Tangurple spent a few days grinding away at XP levels, hunting unranked mobs. When the spree ended due to his armor being too low level, he reached level 70. He returned to the smithery and got outfitted for the armor. Some days later, he was given the armor he had long been waiting for. For the first time since this game launched, he wore armor that was not only matched in appearance but also contained set buffs.

Set buffs are effects attached to armor that boost certain stats and for Tangurple, he maxed out his physical and magical resistances. All of it was decorated to match a Roman Praetorian.

Creoft hammered away at the logistics of the upcoming raid wondering just how much was enough and what was too little. He worked alongside Elvici to get the right amount of potions with traits catered towards each person. However, he wasn't excluded from the gear updater. Many pieces of armor he wore was under leveled for him and was replaced with better stuff. His new look featured an almost ancient greek appearance, a style Hagtard was fond of since Creoft wasn't specific in how it looked.

Falcher was also upgraded and his outfit changed as well. From the conglomerate of a dozen different appearances to one unified look. Full leather painted steel grey with a partial snow bear pelt draped across the top of his helmet and down his neck. It's head and upper mouth hung over the front of the helmet acting like a brimmed cap. His rapiers changed to a more French look, a Tasaki style, according to the blacksmith.

Pyroholiday, however, was already caught up on his gear.

Then came Saturday, known as Urtayad in-game lore. Saturday was the day the three of them agreed upon to end this madness once and for all. That Saturday also happened to be Valentine's day.

Dawn came bringing with it hope and fear, love and hate, peace and turmoil. Tangurple was up early and already packed for the journey ahead. He knelt down in front of a makeshift cross, pieces of wooden planks he manipulated through the homestead furnishing system. He began to pray, mumbling hastily but without a single skip in his monologue with a being beyond the threshold.

The rest of the Guardian's Guildhall was relatively quiet. Falcher was the next to awaken. He exited his room and headed downstairs into the main lobby.

Creoft appeared a couple of minutes later, yawning frequently. "So..." Creoft yawned again, speaking in a very tired voice. "Where's Tang? Is he not up yet?"

"I didn't check. I would assume so but I haven't seen him since I've been up." Falcher replied. "I'll go check on him, the kid probably fell back asleep."

Falcher approached Tangurple's room and paused at the sound of whispering. He leaned against the door and listened in, using the gap between the door and frame to see him kneeling beside his makeshift cross.

Tangurple's weapons and helm laid beside him on the ground. He stared at the cross with intent as he continued his seemingly unending monologue. "...Just give me the strength I need to survive. I know this place to be a video game, one meant to be without consequence in the real world. I know there to be others who call to you for real problems but in here, this upcoming battle, this is my real problem because failure means I die. I'm not ready to die. I have still had much to do, much more to experience. Protect me and guide my sword so that we all may get one zone closer to being free from this digital prison, Amen."

Tangurple ran his arm across his face and pushed himself to his feet. He leaned over and retrieved his sword and shield from the floor. "Hey Falcher," he called out to him.

"How did you-?"

"You breathe heavy, should've picked some other race if you wanted to be stealthy."

Falcher pushed the door open and started for the staircase. "We're heading out, you coming?"

"Yep, just give me a second to double check my inventory and my skill setup."

Falcher skipped some steps with his exaggerated gnollish walk down the stairs. "He's coming, let's make for the transit shrine."

Pyro and Creoft nodded and the three of them left the silent guildhall. Tangurple followed a few minutes later. From the transit shrine in Empora, they warped their way through Swampmaw, Uskor and into Randstad. The freezing air of the Nordic lands brought a wave of frost and fear; an icy touch that could shatter metal.

Randstad was thriving as usual but there was awkwardness in the town populace. Everyone seemed to be glancing around, keeping suspicions high. Local guards approached the four of them with their swords drawn. The first guard had a strong Viking accent, "You four, adventurers, who among you have contracted the disease?"

Creoft stepped forward, "None of us. We're heading out west to hunt for the vampire lord."

"Under orders of Jarl Nickolai, no one is allowed to leave the confinement of the city walls, all who enter are subject to immediate detainment." Both guards stood at attention staring at Creoft with an almost evil eye.

"I don't have time for this, I have a vampire to kill and people to rescue. So if you two would be-"

"You will not pass. Come with us now or we will be forced to lock you up."

Creoft stepped between the two of them and quickly raised his arms, hands vertical. With sudden speed, a miniature blade ejected from the sleeves of his armor and fatally pierced the guards. "You asked for it," Creoft grumbled. "Quick, let's get out of here before more come, especially now that I have a bounty."

Tangurple was wide-eyed. "Where did you get a weapon like that?"

"It's a specialty item that only exists for me. I figured it would be fun to fight with hidden blades, plus they can negate the invulnerability status of NPCs. Now start running, I see the first wave of guards."

The four of them took off in a full sprint down the street as a group of guards approached the transit shrine. Fortunately for them, the streets were narrow, crowded and plentiful. With numerous turns and corners, the group quickly lost the trailing guardsmen. However, one obstacle remained: the front gate.

The front gate acted an instance separator between the overworld and public play area and the play area of the city itself. Guards sat on either side of the massive wooden doors. Creoft readied his hidden blades. "When I stab them, get ready to run. Five seconds or less. Once on the other side, just keep running until you lose the guards."

The other three nodded and Creoft launched from his hiding spot in the alleyway and charged full force towards the two guards at the gate. They saw him, equipped their weapons and as he suspected, they ran for him. Creoft leaped up into the air, palms facing the incoming soldiers. He pushed his arms out and the blades dug into the eye sockets of the helmets and down the two soldiers fell.

Tangurple, Falcher, and Pyro then took off and exited the city via the gates, Creoft followed a moment later. On the other side, the two guards immediately took up pursuit with Tangurple, the slowest person in the group. The group ran towards the north, Tangurple, however, ran southernly taking the two guards with him.

The further into the wilderness he got, the deeper the snow was and the slower he became. The guards were also struggling in their heavy suits of armor. When the snow reached thigh depth, the city guardsmen terminated their pursuit and trudged their way back to the city gates leaving Tangurple alone in the southern pine forest.

The pine forest to Randstad's southern border was very dense and filled with fully matured spruce and pine trees; the occasional birch mixed in. Daylight was passed through the layers of needle leaves on the towering trees with ease. Despite that, seeing the actual position of the sun was near impossible.

Then the glitch struck again. The flashing of colors and destructive screeching of pitches rendered him stunned and face first in the snow bank. He clenched his fists into a tight ball and thrashed around in pain. The vibrant color display persisted as the damaging sounds faded into a singular distinct voice.

It was familiar to him, deep and raspy almost desperate sounding. Tangurple blindly called out to it. "Judas?"

"So the Catholic can hear me? Isn't that just swell."

The colors eventually sorted themselves out into a cohesive picture and as Tangurple opened his eyes, he saw Judas standing above him. He grabbed his sword and jabbed it upwards. But to no avail, Judas' appearance was nothing more than a visual rouse, a projection. "Damn you."

"I know what you and your friends are up to. I've been eagerly waiting for this moment."

"Eager to die then?"

"No my dear opponent, not even close. I've been keeping my eyes on you and on Creoft in recent days. That little get-together with the council, oh that was rich. I don't think I've ever seen that god get angry."

"God? Creoft?"

"Oh right, I forget that I'm the only person to recognize him as one, more so a false one at that."

"You don't make an ounce of damn sense, y'know."

"Who said I was supposed to? I'm simply getting what I wanted with this."

Tangurple growled.

"You think making animal noises will deter me? Bah! I am the King of Vampirism. I will become the god of this world, and yours."

"The world in which I come from is outside your domain and capabilities."

"So you think, as of right now, I'm picking off your friends one by one."

Tangurple came to the realization that the group had split at the gates. "Touch them and I will come after you with the wrath of God that no person in history has ever seen."

"Isn't that precious, you're trying to scare me with your little guardian attitude. Look at how little good that's done for you. Your female companion, she's been out of your reach since the events of Uskor."

"A temporary setback, one I intend to solve very shortly."

"Come at me, worm. I welcome you and your false god into my domain. I cannot wait to see you blunder this one like Uskor and Jonkas." With that challenge, Judas faded from view.

Tangurple threw himself to his feet and dusted off the snow from his shoulder pads. He spun around in circles trying to piece together his bearings. With some luck, he took a guess and trudged forward.

On the northern side of the city, the group of three maintained their sprint westbound. After a couple of minutes, the endurance run took its toll on them and staggard, they slowed down. Unlike the southern portion, the northern area was littered in rocks and outcroppings which provided some shelter from the frozen winds of the northern mountains and a seat above the wet snow. They huddled together on a sizable rock.

Falcher patted himself down, double checking to make sure all his gear was still attached and that nothing had fallen off during the sprint. To his relief, it was all there.

Pyroholiday was the first to stand up and suggest another sprint westward. However, both Creoft and Falcher were strongly against another marathon, no matter how short of a sprint it was. That is until archers appeared on the city walls. A dozen or so chainmail-clad archers lined the wall and strung their bows with flaming arrows. The sight scared them into an adrenaline rush and further westward they ran. A barrage of arrows followed them for many seconds.

Once they were out of range of the city, they stopped to take a breather again. Creoft pulled out his map of Ashua. He sat it down on a large and semi-flat rock for the other two to see. Their group icons appeared on the map: arrowheads with different colors for each person. Creoft stared at the western portion of the map. There were no actual caves or delves marked on the western side because the markers only appear once the player discovers the sight personally.

Falcher leaned forward and scratched his chin before pointing to a spot in the southwestern corner. "There looks like a good spot, it looks like a clearing."

Creoft shook his head. "For other bosses, maybe. No, Judas is going to be hiding in a cave."

Pyroholiday pointed to another spot in the north. "I know this is where the shrine was, but could it be that Judas is hidden there? Like in Uskor the boss was in the ravine beside the city?"

"Possibly, the jagged outcroppings would provide a good base for something like that. I was looking at a mine. At the far edge of the map, you see the deformed circle with rings?"

Falcher and Pyroholiday nodded.

"I want to check there first. If I wanted a secluded spot, map edge would be perfect. Add an abandoned mining project to that and it gives the necessary tunnels. But first, we need to get Tangurple. Without a tank, Judas will be even more so of a pain to deal with."

"Agreed, but where would he be? He ran south but those forests are so dense you'd lose any sense of direction."

"We've got the map and the map has the group markers, we can follow that. He will just have to keep going straight."

Tangurple weaved around the trees, the thicket becoming even thicker. Thorny vines were scattered about, some strangling trees while others grew thick enough to stand on their own. The wind whistled and dragged the frostbitten air with it. He shivered in his heavy armor and forced himself to keep moving. The thicket was blocking out most of the sun's light which made time unmeasurable. Darkness swelled around him and the faint light that did permeate the canopy of spike-like leaves of the coniferous tree created illusions.

Shadows seemed to move and dance around him. The faster he moved, the more frequent their appearances were. The feeling of both dread and being stalked overcame him. Fear was manifesting itself into optical illusions perceived as mobile silhouettes. Tangurple held his scythe in one hand and dragged it along with him. It provided some measure of assurance.

Some of the pine trees had retained their low hanging branches which had numerous smaller twigs attached. On more than one occasion, those twigs brushed Tangurple in some odd way. Then the roots started surfacing. Tripping hazards made themselves known after Tangurple stumbled and tripped over a dozen of roots. The snow on the ground hid them well.

He came upon a clearing. It was circular and broad daylight lit up. He rushed out into the middle of it, smiling as wide as he could. That smile lasted only a few seconds. The clearing was devoid of snow and in its place was dead grass and a lot of sticks coated in mud. In the center of this clearing were several sizable objects. Reluctantly, he approached them.

Upon closer inspection, these objects were ovalish and speckled in colors. These objects were eggs. Not even a blink of an eye later, a loud screech echoed from the sky as a large creature landed behind him. Tangurple slowly turned around.

In front of him was a griffin. A very large griffin. Griffins are the hybrid kings of all animals; their heads and feet belong to an eagle whilst the body to a lion. The Griffin in front of him was triple his size and was white in color. Above it was its nametag and health bar. To no surprise, this was a rank two roamer boss.

"Ah, shit..." Tangurple cursed. "If you'll excuse me, I'm just gonna nope out of here. Os if you'd kindly-"

The griffin screeched again as Tangurple tried to slowly back away from the eggs. The beast extended its wings, preparing to fly or attack. Tangurple wasn't quite sure what it was up to. Regardless of which choice, he wanted to be nowhere near it. He turned and made a break for the thicket again only to run into a giant obsidian wall. "Map boundary?! Of all the times-"

The griffin screeched again and flapped its wings, taking flight above him. Tangurple ran in the opposite direction, through the thicket. He hastily unequipped his scythe and some of his heavier armor. The Griffin pursued him from on high throwing down a handful of AoE attacks. To his advantage, the thicket prevents the griffin from doing and deadly close range or swipe attacks.

However, even a barrage of razor sharp feathers still hurt. The Griffin, unable to do any other attacks, threw barrage after barrage of razor feathers at him, aiming further ahead each time. Tangurple weaved around trees and jumped over their exposed roots. Running was the only thing he could do.

That was until he collided with something. In his exhausted state, Tangurple's vision blurred and failed to spot another object in his path. He slammed into it and hit the ground. The object he collided with made a grunt and fell with him.

"Tang?" Falcher sounded surprised. "Why the rush?"

Tangurple laid still on the ground, panting heavily as Creoft sat up. "What are you running from?"

Then came another screech. The Griffin dove into the forest and slammed its way through the dense canopy of pine needles. The large ball of white fur and feathers came hard and fast towards them.

Creoft scrambled to his feet. Falcher picked up Tangurple and the four of them ran away. The Griffin hit the ground with a loud thunk but didn't move after that. That, however, didn't dissuade them from continuing yet another run.

After some time, they slowed down. Falcher dropped Tangurple onto his back and laid down on the ground next to him. Creoft leaned against a tree and took off his helmet, using it as a fan to cool himself down.

"What was that?" Falcher asked.

"That my friend, that was a griffin. Nasty things. Crossbreed disaster of a lion and an eagle."

"Has it stopped chasing us?"

"Probably. They won't travel far from their nests."

"Hey, Cro!" Pyro called back to him. "Come look at this."

Creoft pushed himself off the tree and sluggishly dragged his feet towards Pyro. "What's up?"

Pyro pointed at a giant mining pit. They were at the edge of the forest that surrounded the mining pit where Creoft suspected Judas to be. Just a few more feet and the forest's edge turned into a hundred foot drop into the quarry. Creoft leaned forward to get a better look. "I do not like this ledge. It's a long way down, I don't even know if that is slidable."

"One way to find out."

"Push me and I drag you too."

"Not what I was suggesting but good to know. I'll wait for you at the entrance." Pyro took a few steps back. He got his running start in and jumped from the edge. Creoft watched Pyro fall and upon hitting the ground, Pyro used his momentum and morphed into a continuous roll across part of the quarry.

Creoft called out to him, "Are you dead?"

Pyro flopped onto his back and held a thumbs up. "Severely hurt but I'll live!"

Suddenly, another screech echoed across the land. Creoft looked towards the sky over the quarry but saw nothing. He hastily turned around, "Falcher, Tang, time to go! We got company!" he then sat down at the forest's edge and slid down the nearly vertical slope of the cliff.

Falcher and Tangurple rose to their feet and approached the edge, both of them reluctant to move forward. "I really don't like this idea."

"I don't either but-" Tangurple grabbed Falcher's hand and threw himself down the slope. Falcher caught off guard, tumbled down with him.

Pyro was already waiting for them at the entrance to a tunnel mine on the far side of the quarry. Creoft ran across the open and rocky terrain and entered the tunnels.

Falcher and Tangurple recovered from their rough fall and sprinted for the tunnel. Tangurple's heavy armor slowed him down substantially and Falcher kept running without even noticing, he was the third to enter the tunnel.

The Griffin made its appearance in the skies above the quarry. Tangurple scrambled over the jagged rocks, struggling to retain his footing long enough to keep momentum. The Griffin quickly spotted him and dove. It folded itself into a near perfect albeit massive spear.

Tangurple tripped and stumbled onto his back just in time to recognize the close proximity of the Griffin. He quickly equipped his sword and shield holding them both high above him.

The Griffin extended itself pulling out its large wings and deathly sharp talons. Its talons scrapped and ground against Tangurple's shield. The sheer force of it, however, threw Tangurple across the quarry dealing a substantial amount of damage to him. He stood up and raised his shield again, positioning himself for one more throw.

As he expected, the griffin flew back around for seconds with its talons out. The beast dove and clashed with his shield. The force threw Tangurple directly into the entrance of the tunnel network. The, however, was unable to correct its trajectory and slammed right into the face of the cliff. The impact shook the cliff and a chunk of it broke off and fell, crushing the griffin and ultimately, sealing the entrance into the tunnels.