Chương 129: Down and Left

Meno stared at chat while hundreds of people spammed the same two words at him. COMPASS QUEST do the compass quest idiot TURN AROUND you need navigation unlock COMPASS QUEST COMPASS QUEST FOLLOW THE CURRENT bro bought a ship before learning directions A quest. There was absolutely no way Meno was sailing all the way back to Westmarket so some NPC could make him collect three pieces of wood, talk to a sailor, and unlock the advanced technology of facing the right direction. The internet existed.

Meno opened the Veyrath forums through his stream overlay and searched for Fractera maps. Somebody on the leaderboards had definitely posted a screenshot by now, and unlike NPCs, screenshots usually did not require quest chains. Chat immediately rebelled when they saw what he was doing. THAT WONT WORK map doesn't show the sea route FOLLOW THE CURRENT PBG YOU NEED THE QUEST he is about to get so lost please keep going this is funnier Meno ignored them. Chat was always wrong. That was basically rule one of streaming.

After a minute of scrolling through useless posts, arguments about Fractera being unfinished, and fake maps drawn by people who had clearly never gone there, he found a screenshot showing the southern coastline and a marked route across the Jagged Sea. The caption underneath was beautifully simple. just go down and left Meno compared the screenshot to Ashfang Volcano on his world map. Southwest. Easy.

"See, guys? All good. Full sail ahead." He closed the overlay and pushed the Blackwake back to maximum speed. For a while, navigation actually worked. Meno kept Ashfang Volcano and the southern edge of the continent on his map, using his position relative to both to hold a general southwest line. The Jagged Sea refused to let him travel straight for more than a few minutes at a time, though.

Long shelves of black rock kept breaking the surface ahead, forcing him to curve around them, cut between narrow gaps, or make wide detours whenever the formations connected into something too dangerous to thread through at speed. It was called the Jagged Sea for a reason. At least the Blackwake was fast enough that the detours did not feel terrible. Meno kept the sails full and let the narrow hull carve around the rocks, gradually getting better at starting turns early enough that he did not kill all his momentum.

Nothing attacked him either, which he appreciated after the boat had already survived one assassination attempt today. He was wondering how long the trip was supposed to take when Vivi's voice came through the capsule's internal comm system. The stream could not hear her.

"Meno, the Sorell daughter is here. She wants to talk to you." Meno kept one hand on the ship controls and muted the stream before answering.

"Tell her I'm in content mode. My room is basically radioactive with content. Wouldn't want an allergic reaction." There was a short silence.

"Is that really what you want me to tell her?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not doing that."

"Tell her whatever you want."

"Sure." Meno unmuted the stream and kept sailing. What had started as relaxing became extremely boring about ten minutes later. The continent slowly disappeared from the map as he continued southwest. First Ashfang Volcano moved toward the upper edge, then the coastline became a distant sliver, and eventually Meno was looking at nothing but his position surrounded by water while the actual horizon showed more of the same.

HOWS DOWN AND LEFT GOING compass quest looking real good rn FOLLOW THE CURRENT fracteria is behind you probably keep going surely next minute"Should be there any moment." The moment passed, and Meno was still not there. A few minutes later, something finally appeared on the horizon. Unfortunately, it was coming from the wrong direction and moving fast. A very large bird. It adjusted course the second Meno noticed it and aimed directly at the Blackwake. Meno immediately stopped caring about navigation.

There was no chance he was letting a random creature damage his ship after paying 100k to repair it. He slowed the Blackwake and watched the monster grow larger until its inspect information appeared. Level 65. It looked like an oversized seagull if somebody had stretched the wings twenty feet across, sharpened the beak, and packed enough muscle into it to steal livestock. Manageable. Meno waited until the creature committed to its dive, planted both feet on the deck, and jumped.

The launch threw him upward, and he dismissed the Blackwake back into its orb before the vessel could fall away beneath him. The bird kept coming. Meno had aimed directly into its flight path, putting them on a collision course high above the water. Normally, that would have been the point to use False Blink. Instead, Meno activated Engulf. Fire wrapped around him in midair, Unstable activated, and the familiar oppressive heat spread across his skin just before the giant seabird reached him.

Meno twisted and hit it feetfirst. Sticky Titan locked him onto the bird's upper back. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The monster completely lost its mind. Its wings snapped wide, folded, then opened again as it tried to throw him loose. It rolled hard enough to turn the ocean sideways in his vision, climbed for several seconds, then dove with Meno still attached to its back like the worst parasite in Veyrath.

The first Engulf tick dropped Meno to 90% HP while the bird took the full 100x Sacrifice weapon damage from continuous contact. Its health bar lost a massive chunk.

"Oh, this damage is disgusting." The bird screamed and rolled again. Meno remained stuck to it, legs planted against the feathers while his upper body whipped around with every movement. The second full second of contact dropped Meno to 80% HP and stripped another huge section from the bird. ENGULF IS COOKING IT FLYING MOUNT 100X CONTACT DAMAGE LMAO GET HIM OFF GET HIM OFF sticky titan is so stupid The bird stopped trying to climb and went straight for the ocean. Meno let it.

His HP dropped through 70% HP, then 60% HP, while the monster's bar fell much faster. It had no way to remove him. Every violent turn failed because Sticky Titan prevented forced movement, and every additional second Meno remained attached applied another 100x dagger-damage tick. By the time Meno reached 40% HP, the bird was already deep into critical health. Then they hit the water. The impact drove both of them beneath the surface, but Sticky Titan held Meno against the bird as it thrashed underwater.

Another Engulf tick took him to 30% HP, and the monster dropped below 10%. Meno kicked off with both legs. Titan execute triggered, and the bird died instantly. Its body went limp beneath him as the execute bypassed whatever health remained, and Meno separated just as Sticky lost its valid target. He immediately used Pyronucleosis, turning Engulf off and stunning himself for 3 seconds underwater. Meno had forgotten one small detail about losing Bloodwake. He needed air again.

For the full stun duration, he could do nothing except watch the dead seabird sink beneath him while his character ignored every command. The moment the third second completed, Reactor restored him from 30% HP to 100% HP, but because combat had ended with the bird's death, he gained no Reactor stack. Meno kicked toward the surface immediately. He broke through the water, took a breath, then looked at the XP notification. Pathetic. The bird had been 3 levels higher than him and still barely moved the bar.

"Okay. Fractera definitely better have something worth killing." He resummoned the Blackwake, climbed aboard, and reopened the world map. Then he noticed a problem. During the fight, the ship had been dismissed. Meno had launched into the air, spun around on a giant bird, plunged underwater, gotten dragged around, and surfaced facing some completely random direction. The continent was no longer visible on his map, leaving him with nothing to orient himself against except empty water around his marker.

"This sailing thing sucks." He looked at chat.

"What now? Which way?" COMPASS QUEST NORTH IS UP GENIUS which way were you facing before bird just go down and left AGAIN turn around until fractera appears YOU ARE LOST LOST"Helpful as usual." Meno picked a direction that felt vaguely correct and pushed the Blackwake to full speed again. He skirted more black rock shelves, crossed long runs of open water, adjusted whenever a formation forced him off course, and kept wondering whether each correction had secretly turned him around.

After another fifteen minutes, Meno started seriously considering the possibility that he was sailing in circles, which would be embarrassing. He was about to open the forums again when land appeared straight ahead. Too little land. Meno aimed the Blackwake toward it, and as he approached, it resolved into a pale island surrounded by black water and jagged rocks.

"Do you guys think this place has buried treasure? Seems a bit random to be out here." YES DIG IMMEDIATELY no it is literally sand X MARKS THE SPOT WHERE IS THE X there is 100% something there The island was maybe three hundred feet from end to end and completely empty. Meno had not seen another island during the entire trip, and he definitely did not remember random sand patches from sailing back from Naraltan with Thorn. It smelled like hidden content.

"Going to dig." Meno dismissed the Blackwake close to shore and jumped the remaining distance, landing near the middle of the island. There was no obvious marker, so he picked a spot that looked exactly as meaningless as every other spot and started moving sand with his hands. For the first minute, it was a joke. After the second, Meno found slightly darker sand underneath and decided that meant something. After the third, he had committed too much time to stop.

Chat began suggesting increasingly stupid locations while Meno expanded the hole, pushing loose sand behind him and digging deeper every time he convinced himself the color had changed again. rank 1 player BTW ten feet left trust me DIG STRAIGHT DOWN NEVER FAILS there is nothing there HE IS TOO DEEP TO QUIT NOW buried legendary compass incoming Meno ignored them and kept going until his fingers hit something hard. He froze, brushed sand away, and uncovered a flat dark surface underneath.

"Wait." Meno cleared more sand. The surface continued. Not rock. Worked stone. He started digging faster, widening the hole around the edges until a carved line appeared beneath the sand. Then another. After several more minutes, enough of the shape emerged for Meno to realize he was looking at the top of a huge buried double door. HE ACTUALLY FOUND SOMETHING BURRIED DOOR WTF TREASURE TREASURE TREASURE HOW DOES HE DO THIS Meno laughed.

"Told you!" He widened the hole until he could reach both door edges without immediately losing the opening to collapsing sand. The doors were made from almost black stone, carved with chains, broken crowns, and rows of tiny figures kneeling beneath something with no face. That seemed promising. Meno got both hands under one side and pulled. Nothing happened. He planted his feet deeper into the sand and tried again, using his whole body. For several seconds, the door refused him.

Then it shifted with a deep grinding sound, and ancient sand poured into the widening crack. Cold air came from below. The instant the doors opened far enough to reveal darkness underneath, a notification appeared. [Forbidden Gaol of the Drowned Saint] Recommended Level: 60-70 1-5 Players Meno stared at it for a second before laughing again. Chat went completely insane.

HE FINDS THIS LOST AT SEA FORBIDDEN GAOL TOP PLAYERS MALDING RIGHT NOW DO NOT SHARE LOCATION HE DOESNT KNOW THE LOCATION EITHER"Couldn't find Fractera, but found a dungeon. Classic." Meno looked at the open doors, then back toward the empty sea surrounding the island.

"Still have no idea where I actually am or how to get here." That was bad news for everybody else. More than six million viewers had just watched Meno discover a Level 60–70 dungeon while most top players were busy crawling around Fractera without finding anything significant. Normally, the location would be public within minutes. Except Meno was completely lost. They could study the stream and try to reproduce his route, but even he had no idea how many wrong turns he had taken after the seabird fight.

He had sailed southwest, fought something, lost his orientation, picked a random direction, maybe looped around several rock shelves, and then found the island by accident. Unfortunately, he had also trolled himself. He had not come out here to farm a dungeon. He wanted to find Kestrel, stick to his face, and extract 3k gold at a time until the 100k repair bill stopped bothering him. Leaving this place was even worse. Without a compass or a party member holding the location, he might never find it again.

And the name was Forbidden Gaol of the Drowned Saint. Forbidden things usually had good loot. His phone-link rang inside the capsule less than a minute later. Thorn. Meno accepted.

"Hey!" Thorn's voice came through immediately.

"How did you just find that? Quickly invite me to a party so I can see your location." Meno looked down into the dark dungeon entrance.

"Have you got your reps in yet?"

"What?"

"Your reps."

"Not yet. I've been too busy."

"Then go pump and call me after." Meno hung up. HE GATEKEPT THORN WITH GYM REPS go pump lol THORN IS GOING TO KILL HIM world first before friendship PBG does not share XP Meno was not giving Thorn the location for free. Or anyone else, for that matter. A dungeon meant XP, and XP meant leaderboard position. Meno would clear it first, then trade the location for transportation to Fractera afterward.

Somebody with a compass, navigation quest, or functional brain could party him and tell him exactly where to sail once the dungeon was done. Much better. Someone might reconstruct the path from the stream before he finished, but it would take time. Meno turned back toward the buried entrance. It was time to see whether False Hero was actually any good.

"Sorry, Meno, but she barged inside the suite and doesn't want to leave." Meno closed his eyes. His brain had already entered dungeon mode, and this was absolutely not the time.

"Vivi, deal with it. I don't care. I'm about to world first this dungeon. Do you know what that means?"

"No. What does it mean?" Meno looked down into the darkness.

"It means everything, Vivi. Everything."