by G. D. Penman
[Adriel has suffered 19 piercing damage]
She’d survived. She wouldn’t be going anywhere soon, but she was alive. Which meant Martin could still use her.
He scrambled across the battlefield as fast as his little legs would carry him, dropping to all fours to scurry on as another chain rushed by where his head had been a moment before.
[MISS]
This close he could hear Jericho roaring, “Why! Won’t! You! Die!” over the deafening screams of metal.
Martin barreled right into him before finding his feet. Jericho didn’t even flinch. Martin hissed, “Get back. It isn’t going to open when you’re this close.”
“Good!” Jericho hammered on with his useless attacks. “It should fear me!”
Martin calculated the quickest solution to his disobedient tank. “Julia needs help.”
“Eh?” The barrage stopped.
“She’s stuck on a spike. Go get her down.”
Whatever battle fury had overtaken Jericho was gone in an instant, and he ran for his girlfriend without a backward glance. The iron maiden eased open a crack as the Martyr departed, letting a fresh wash of reeking gore slip out onto Martin’s feet.
For a moment, Martin thought he’d misjudged the Archduke, but it was only a moment. Ferrox began to spin.
This time, Martin did not try to duck and dodge, but kept pace with the side of Ferrox with the gaping maw, his stamina dwindling with each dizzying turn around the room.
A touch of his guild crest let him talk freely to them all. “Julia, can you cast?”
Her usual saccharine voice sounded sluggish and ragged. Martin wondered if she’d managed to heal herself yet. “I can.”
“The big delayed heal that you used on Jericho the other day – is that off cooldown?”
Her voice seemed to be returning to normal as they spoke. “Seed of the Sun? It’s ready, but what…?”
Martin leapt over another jagged outcropping. “Cast it on me now with a ten second timer.”
The gaping maw of the monster hung wide open now, flapping wider and wider with each spin, like the Archduke had forgotten to lock the door. The darkness inside set the fur on the back of Martin’s neck prickling. Knowing that he could be mutilated in the fights with the Archdukes, just the prospect of being trapped inside it filled him with fear. The fear that Strata planted inside them was the most powerful weapon that the Heart had at its disposal. The only way to beat it was to go willingly into the dark. With a blink to check his character sheet, Martin confirmed that Julia had cast the healing spell on him, then dove at Ferrox.
Even leaping with all his might he didn’t have the raw agility to jump inside, but he could drop his sword, grab the lower rim and pull himself up. More spikes were hidden in the thick slurry of the dead within Ferrox. They slipped through the palms of Martin’s paws so smoothly he almost didn’t notice them until the strange numbness that the game provided instead of pain shot up his arms.
[Skaife has suffered 18 piercing damage]
This was going to be even less fun than he’d anticipated. In the distance he could hear the rest of Iron Riot shouting as they saw him disappear inside the Archduke’s guts, but he had no time to spare them any mind. As Ferrox bucked and twisted, Martin scrambled to his feet, spikes adding a fresh pair of wounds.
[Skaife has suffered 16 piercing damage]
Ferrox slammed shut, driving more of the iron maiden spikes into Martin, releasing pinpricks of numbness all over his body, but not impaling him the way they would have one of the larger races.
[Skaife has suffered 1 piercing damage]
[Skaife has suffered 1 piercing damage]
[Skaife has suffered 1 piercing damage]
[Skaife has suffered 1 piercing damage]
[Skaife has suffered 1 piercing damage]
Three health left, and three seconds to wait until the heal kicked in. Martin was trapped in place by the spikes, surrounded by the metallic screams of the damned. If there was a hell, then this was what it would feel like. He braced himself as best he could to stop himself sliding around in what was now a puddle of his own blood, then cast Halo.
It was one of the first spells he’d picked up in Strata, and one of the most circumstantially useful. It could blind enemies if they were looking his way with a sudden burst of sun-bright light, yet, like Ferrox, more than half of the cave-adapted enemies they’d come across didn’t even have eyes, let alone rely on them to hunt. He could barely remember the last time he had used it.
Martin brought light to the dark place inside the Archduke.
[ELEMENTAL WEAKNESS: DOUBLE DAMAGE]
[CRITICAL HIT]
[Ferrox has suffered 164 light damage]
Ferrox’s door mouth burst wide open, and it flung itself to the ground to disgorge Martin just as Julia’s Seed of the Sun restored him to fighting form.
[Skaife has recovered 40 Health]
Martin felt air refilling his punctured lungs, and bellowed, “Get it!”
For his part, he lit up his sword with Trinity Strike and hammered it into the meaty gap between the spikes of Ferrox’s crown.
[ELEMENTAL WEAKNESS: DOUBLE DAMAGE]
[Ferrox has suffered 42 light damage]
[Ferrox has suffered 11 piercing damage]
The brief burst of damage was all fine and good, but at the end of the day the Exorcist was not a pure damage class the way that Lindsay’s Knave was. His biggest contribution to the fight on a mechanical basis was the increased critical hit chance that Trinity Strike gave everyone else, which they were all now taking great advantage of.
Jericho took a running jump to land on Ferrox’s back with the intent to pin the immobilized Archduke down for longer. Speckles and Julia closed the distance almost as fast, and now they were darting about, weaving the chains on the floor together into massive tangles. It seemed that Lindsay had almost reached Ferrox by the time Martin triggered his hail-Mary Halo. She had slipped into her maximum-damage rotation, switching seamlessly from one ability to the next as they came off cooldown and grinding out every point of damage possible.
Of course, that perfection came at a price. Lindsay insisted on bellowing the name of every attack like she was a cartoon character.
“Shadeblade Slice!”
[Ferrox has suffered 11 slashing damage]
[Ferrox has suffered 21 dark damage]
“Backstab!”
[CRITICAL HIT]
[Ferrox has suffered 44 piercing damage]
“In the name of the moon, I punish you! With Raptor Strike!”
[Ferrox has suffered 22 piercing damage]
All the while, Jericho’s light attacks hammered down into Ferrox, and Martin’s own haphazard sword swings chipped away a little more.
[ELEMENTAL WEAKNESS: DOUBLE DAMAGE]
[Ferrox has suffered 6 light damage]
[Ferrox has suffered 8 light damage]
[Ferrox has suffered 4 light damage]
[Ferrox has suffered 4 slashing damage]
[Ferrox has suffered 3 slashing damage]
Ferrox’s massive health pool was dwindling under the combined assault. Martin felt certain they were close to victory. Which was when the floor dropped out from under them.
Just as Ferrox’s body had snapped open, so too did the floor of its chamber. The irregular seam had been impossible to see beneath the rust and twisted spikes, but now that the yawning void beneath them hung open it was so obvious that Martin could have kicked himself.
If they’d known in advance they could have fought Ferrox on one side of the room and used the spiked floor for handholds when it gave away. But they had not known. They had fought Ferrox right in the center of the room, and now they were falling with nothing to hold onto but each other.
Lindsay and Jericho were still clinging to the Archduke as they fell, Speckles and Julia trailing from its chains. There was a fraction of a second until they made contact with the floor of the next deep.
Martin bello
wed into the roaring wind: “Everyone to Jericho! Blow all your cooldowns. He’ll tank the hit.”
Some of their falling damage would be conveyed to Ferrox. Jericho’s Martyr abilities could redirect the rest to himself. If Julia threw all her healing into him at the moment of impact, that might be enough to save them.
Enough to save them – but not Martin. He was too far out from the Archduke to use it as a cushion for his fall. He was going to hit the solid stone face first. If Strata still considered this a part of the Archduke fight, and his scars persisted after resurrection like the last ones, he was going to be a furry pancake for the rest of the game.
He braced himself for impact, not that it would do any good. The crack of Jericho’s whip snapped his eye open. The barbed tips of the cat o’ nine tails was coiled around his wrist, and the Wulvan was heaving him in with all his might.
He slammed into Jericho’s chest in what might have been a hug, were they not manly men. Jericho’s voice rumbled down: “Rat fishing. Terrible hobby.”
Martin readied his Healing Touch to add a little boost to the barrage of healing spells that Julia was pouring out to get them back to full health and did his best not to scream.
[PENANCE: Jericho has suffered 218 environmental damage]
[CELESTIAL BODY: Jericho absorbs 100 damage]
[Jericho has recovered 34 health]
[Jericho has recovered 160 health]
The impact took any decision making away from Martin, slapping his hand forward onto Jericho’s hairy abs at the moment of impact, then sending him tumbling head over tail across the smooth basalt floor.
[Skaife has suffered 54 environmental damage]
That would have left him dead if he hadn’t been hit with Julia’s Blessing of Ages on the way down, giving him a pool of temporary hit points as a buffer. All five of the guild were similarly splattered across the floor, coming to a rest in the cool darkness.
Not all of them had Martin’s health pool but Julia’s self-healing was up to the task, while Lindsay’s Hollow Bones reduced falling damage and Speckles’ general bounciness seemed to have served him well. They’d made it through the fall alive.
Ferrox was not so lucky. His metal plates were scattered all around them. The raw flesh of the thing underneath, juicy and rippling in the dim light of distant torches, heaved and twitched as the Archduke let out a long keening cry of agony, then fell silent.
[ANNOUNCEMENT: Iron Riot have defeated Ferrox, Ninth Archduke of Strata]
Skaife gains 6,000 experience.
LEVEL UP!
Martin let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding until the announcement popped up. Lindsay was less restrained, crying out in an undulating whooping noise from where she lay on her back.
Martin groaned back onto his feet, then went over to check out the loot left behind by the boss while the celebrations rolled on around him. Amidst the wash of silver coins and crafting items he was startled to discover the Crusading Exorcist’s Creedblade. He let out a little laugh, then equipped it in place of his old sword.
[14–21 damage]
[+5% Light Damage]
[+5% Halo Duration]
He’d expected it to be some sparkling thing like the shiny armor he’d picked up from the last Archduke, but instead it very much looked its age. This thing was a relic and there was no doubt of it, grime and verdigris clogging the indecipherable inscriptions along the blade.
Outside of the game, the rest of the guild had distractions – Lindsay had her hotshot finance job; Jericho and Julia had each other. But Martin lived and breathed Strata every moment of the day.
There was barely any information about Strata online. The game had no mechanism for exporting information, and, with every guild in competition to reach the end first, it didn’t make sense to share intelligence with the enemy. But some bits and pieces still filtered through.
Martin had made himself a bit of money selling in-game items on auction sites, and now lurked on those sites constantly, reading the item descriptions that people provided to help sell their digital goods.
One that Martin had lingered over for days had actually been the Crusading Exorcist’s Creedblade. The seller hadn’t been able to see the Exorcist-specific effects of the weapon, but Martin had felt sure it boosted the effect of Celestial Strike. What really caught his attention was the description: “A weapon forged in ancient times to fulfill the most sacred vow of the Exorcist; to bring light to dark places.”
Just an odd little turn of phrase that had taught him everything he needed to defeat the Archduke.
There was some sort of S&M harness in the mix that was clearly meant for Martyrs, along with a mantle and hood for Hierophants and another new cape for Knaves – The Cloak of Many Pockets. Lindsay would love that, she was always so excited when clothes had pockets. Without bothering to discuss the matter, Martin sent each item to the relevant player’s inventory, then turned back to the scene unfolding before them.
Lindsay was sitting on the carcass of the Archduke, sighing meaningfully in the direction of Julia and Jericho, who were now locked in what looked to be a pretty passionate embrace. Martin didn’t even realize you could kiss without lips. It seemed that tongues featured more heavily in the equation.
Lindsay clasped her feathered hands to her chest. “Oh, Martin, why don’t we celebrate like that?”
“Because we aren’t dating.” He was flicking through his character sheet, working out where to assign his new stats.
She leaned her face against his shoulder. “But we’d be so perfect together.”
“Usually when someone suggests it you laugh so hard you have to take a toilet break.”
She clung to his arm. “But, gosh, you’re so earnest and endearing. Couldn’t we make a go of it?”
“Long-distance dating would be a problem. You have, and I quote, ‘the sex drive of an oyster-guzzling otter.’”
“And the morals of an alley cat.” She plopped herself back on the corpse-sofa. “Plus, you’re a stinky boy.”
Martin sighed and sat down beside her. “My boy-aroma would certainly put a damper on our dating plans.”
“But we have so much in common. You like video games, I like video games. You like girls, I’m a certified girl with paperwork to prove it. A girl, on the internet. Don’t you know how rare that is?” She was tilting her head from side to side as she stared at Jericho and Julia’s tongue wrestling.
Speckles was lurking behind Jericho, his arms held out and his massive frog tongue contorting in the air as he copied their sloppy make-outs on a macro scale. Lindsay had to wrap her hands around her beak to contain her laughter.
Martin just wished that Jericho and Julia had gone on pretending that they weren’t dating. They wasted so much time with these displays. He sighed. “I’m mostly… ambivalent to girls.”
Lindsay’s elbow dug into his side. “That must be why the ladies are practically breaking down your door.”
Martin lay back on the gooey mass, unwilling to watch Jericho’s roving hands or Speckles’ mummer’s farce any longer. “I am universally admired and adored.”
“Aren’t you just.” Lindsay crowed with laughter.
Two
Long Live the King
Opening his eyes to the real world was usually a serious disappointment for Martin, but after an evening in a rusty, spike-encrusted hellscape, the beige-and-pastels decor of the motel room was actually pretty pleasant. It took a few seconds longer for his dead eye to open, and for him to adjust to all the depth perception it brought along for the ride. The lazy spin of the fan above him came into focus and he let out a breath. He was back. He was here. This was real.
This was real. He was really here. He was really doing this.
The tower of his computer was still in his backpack, wires trailing out to the power and internet sockets on the wall, with another reaching up to the NIH still strapped to his head. He wrestled it off with a groan and rubbed circles on the contact p
oints where it had been pressed against his head, less from pain and more just to remind himself that this was the skin he was in. He had no fur or claws, and his teeth were not for gnawing through much of anything except instant ramen.
A glance at his phone told him that it was just a little after midnight, and that Lindsay had already sent him three messages since she’d logged off. The first two were her usual twee, relentlessly happy nonsense, but the third was just a screenshot of the Brotherhood in Exile’s guild website. In the time between Iron Riot beating Ferrox and Martin checking his phone, they had posted about their own victory over the Archduke. The two guilds were neck and neck on their mad plunge to the bottom of Strata. That stole some of his thunder.
He’d expected the Brotherhood to be banging their heads against Ferrox for another week at least. They must have managed to poach a new member from one of the guilds that were further through the game to teach them the mechanics of the fight. There was no way in hell that Dante or any of his tag-along morons had worked it out.
Normally, Martin would have hunkered down over his calculations to work out if the presence of another guild moving through the same sections of the dungeon was going to impact their progress and experience gain, but tonight of all nights he let his math wait. By this time tomorrow, everything could be different. He was about to acquire information about the makers of the game that might give him exactly the perspective he needed for Iron Riot to leap ahead.
