Last night, after a little bit of crafting, I grabbed by PvE bag from the bank and headed towards my favorite dungeon in DarkFall. Not only are the mobs inside soloable and drop decent loot, but I’ve never seen anyone else inside. That is, until last night.

The first clue that someone was around was the fact that the mobs just outside the dungeon had already spawned. They only spawn when someone enters the area, and in all previous trips that was me. Usually by the time I was off my mount and despawning it, the mobs would spawn and run at me, and I would enter the dungeon before they even got close. As they are tough mobs (much tougher than the ones inside, oddly enough), that was always a plus. This time they were already up, and ran at me as I dismounted. After taking a few hard hits, I was able to get the mount in my bag and enter the dungeon portal, but this already set me on high alert (not to mention I was entering the dungeon at below 100% HP).

Once inside, I heard the familiar sounds of combat, and proceeded to slowly creep towards them. Peaking around a corner, I saw two unguilded human players fighting it out in the first room with the local inhabitants. I noticed one was not wearing much armor and using a staff, while the other was in a mix of chain and banded and swinging a one-handed sword. I figured they must be grouped, and this being DarkFall, you can’t trust anyone. I had a few choices: leave and risk nothing, ask to join them and share the dungeon, or wait for a good chance and jump them.

A little more background is needed here. For one, I was wearing basically my best stuff, save for a top set of PvP gear, and so just assuming these guys would not kill me when I got low on HP was risky. Second, both of the humans where ‘blue’, meaning they had positive alignment, which while this does not guarantee they don’t kill other racially-aligned players, they at least don’t do it often. Finally, the mobs in this dungeon have a chance to drop a veilron key, which is worth 2000 gold and three magic items. To put this into perspective, on a normal trip into this dungeon I earn about 300-500 gold plus a few bits of armor and casting reagents in an hour or so, so one key is HUGE if it drops.

So, back to my little dilemma. As I’m watching, I notice the guy in chain/banded is getting hit hard by the mobs, and not expertly fighting back. He is a noob, or just someone with fairly low player skill, so I know I can at least take him. The other guy is using a rank 0 staff and little armor, so unless he is hiding better stuff in his bags, I’ll most likely be able to take him as well. Just one problem, if I attack and kill both of them, I’ll lose more than 10 alignment and go red, meaning I won’t be able to return to the NPC city I’m bound at, not to mention be cut off from NPC merchants and the bank. As I’m currently unguilded, that’s not an ideal situation to be in, especially over a single dungeon trip.

But this is DarkFall, and for whatever reason, when I see a player with gear at low HP, especially one who is farming a dungeon and must have SOMETHNG on him, I just can’t resist. Out I charge, rank 40 greatsword out, and start cutting the guy up. As expected, I get the carebear stare reaction, and he turns to run (in a tunnel that is a dead-end no less), falling to the ground shortly. I’m now gray, meaning the other guy is free to attack me without alignment risk, but instead he turns to run in a different direction. Guess they are not buddies after all. I loot the first player, picking up a nice collection of banded, scale, reagents, weapons, as well as a good amount of gold.

After clearing the rest of the room, I see that the second player is still around, and is back to shooting mana missiles at the mobs in the next room. At this point it’s rather obvious he either does not have much on him, or he is just stupid and not afraid to die. As I don’t feel like sharing the dungeon, I attack him and hope to chase him off, but I know I can’t actually kill him without going red. Drop him to 20% HP, yet he still sticks around and is now weakly hitting me with mana missiles. Ugh. I parry and dodge for the two minutes it takes me to get back to blue status, and once this happens he stops attacking and goes back to shooting mana missiles at the mobs. Fine, guess we will share. I invite him to a group, just to prevent going gray accidentally, and we spend a bit of time killing mobs together. We don’t really talk, and our looting rules seem somewhat random. Sometimes he dives for a tombstone and grabs the gold and anything of value, other times he seems perfectly content to let me loot everything.

Now this entire time, the thought of a veilron key dropping is on my mind, and the last thing I want is for one to drop and this random guy to grab one off a mob I kill. This feeling is borderline paranoia, and grows with each tombstone he gets to before me. Mind you it was late at this point, and perhaps I was not thinking too clearly…. After one mob, we both open the tombstone at about the same time, and I ‘think’ I see a key right before it disappears. Bastard. He moves toward the veilron chest in the dungeon, stops, and then goes back to the normal routine of mana missiles and randomness. Is he trying to pass off opening the chest, only to duck out during the next spawn? Now being grouped, I was under the impression I could kill him without an alignment hit, and since in my mind he was now sitting on 2000+ gold, it was time for him to die. As he was not wearing much armor, he dies rather quickly, and since we are grouped, I gank him. I open the tombstone, and of course, no 2000 gold or veilron key, just some random items and a bit of gold. Fail. I look up at my HP/Stam/Mana/Alignment box, and sure enough, I’m at -10 alignment now. Double fail.

Now I’m in another situation, as I’m wearing my top stuff, I’m holding two other players loot plus a bunch of mob stuff, close to 700 gold, and I can’t recall back to town to bank it. This… might be an issue, and all because in my mind I saw a little gray/black key icon. I have a possible solution to my problem, but I’ll have to see if it pans out. Either way, a somewhat interesting and ultimately not all that positive night in DarkFall. And I’m just trying to carebear!