The Awakening – Act 5, Dupre is Back and He’s Drinking

The EM Team has released another large part of the fiction currently driving Ultima Online on the UO Herald. Last month, our BioWare Mythic community relations person, Kai Schober, mentioned that we’d be hearing more about the anniversary with the in-game fiction and you can read between the lines, but I’ll leave that up to you.

Just know this: Dupre is back and he’s drinking. Things are about to go down.

For more on The Awakening, see The Awakening at UO Guide.

What follows is an excerpt:

“Now, charge its left flank, and aim for the seams! Mages, lightning and energy bolts, but focus on keeping up our knights!” Dupre shouted out the orders from behind his plated helm, even as his cadre of knights swarmed one of the monstrosities that laired within Exodus dungeon. With the backup of the mages keeping them healed, they weren’t in any threat at the moment from the beast in front of them. Lord Dupre had heard the noises and gotten glimpses of things from inside what was left of Ver Lor Reg and it caused him quite a bit of worry. He’d been trying to devise tactics so that they could retake the city, but the creatures resisted quite a bit of force, and seemed to give up little in areas of weakness save for how well lightning worked against them. As he observed the knights, a noise from behind caught his attention, and he whirled while he drew the longsword at his side and lunged. His blade bit harshly into the seam of the floating menace, and he smashed it in harder by hammering the hilt with his plated gauntlet. With a squealing shriek of metal, the creature’s internal mechanisms chewed themselves to pieces on his sword before he drew it out and turned away, the creature exploding and peppering his armor with light shrapnel. He slashed the grease and oil clinging to his blade onto the floor of the dungeon as his knights finished slaying the much larger creature, and they retreated from the dungeon once more.

Lord Dupre had always loved the city, with its gentle ocean breeze cutting through the harsh heat of the nearby jungles. Trinsic felt like home, even after all these years…though the sandstone walls didn’t hold the same comfort they once had. In Felucca some of the structures still bore the scars from his campaign against Juo’nar and the fallen knights own siege of the city, but here in Trammel the same evidence was gone; He would never get used to that. He made his way to the weaponsmith, as was usual after these excursions…he’d yet to return without a blade in disrepair from using it against these metal monsters. From there he quickly made his way to the Keg and Anchor, and was going to sit at his favorite table when he noticed there was someone else in the spot he usually occupied. With a muttered grumble under his breath he made his way around the table and sat opposite the man, taking note of his wrinkled and rumpled clothes, and the way he clutched at something in his left hand, a glint of a dingy metal ball hanging off of it.

The waitress didn’t even need to come over to take his drink order; Dupre had been a regular since he’d trekked away from the lands of Felucca to Trammel, and in short order the staff had learned his patterns. She brought over a strong, aged honey whiskey and left him with a glass full and the bottle on the table. As he took a drink, he put it down with a start as the seemingly comatose man across from him had suddenly flung his open right hand out, clearly wanting the glass. Dupre’s face soured for a moment before he shook his head. “You’ll get nothing from begging, but if you’ve got news or information of worth, I’m not averse to sharing the drink then.”

This seemed to have animated the fellow, whose face lifted off the table to regard the knight, and he gave Dupre a crooked smile.
“I’ll tell you a story, my gleaming friend, and perhaps you might understand how this all began. But you’ll get nothing from me with my tongue this dry, so fill up my glass and we can see what you have yet to learn.”

Dupre looked down to see that as if by magic, an empty glass had appeared in the man’s hand, and he poured him half a glass full of the expensive drink.

“Now talk, and make sure it was worth the cost of that whiskey.”

For the rest of the story, see the UO Herald