by Galen Wolf
‘Good job,’ The fighter Daven says.
‘Hurry,’ Grimdark says, pushing forwards. They follow him and see the alcove to the left. I know there’s a crush trap there, and so does the rogue. He’s not bad actually. Once again, he makes Grimdark stand back while he disarms the trap and gets the key.
‘Thanks for the xp,’ Melanie says happily.
Bilbo gives a mock salute and grins.
‘Come on!’ Grimdark yells, striding into the dark.
The wizard Tigorno mutters to Daven the fighter, ‘He’s a liability.’
Daven sighs but they follow Grimdark down the sloping corridor. There’s a locked door at the bottom but they’ve got the key. I hear it turn in the lock. They enter a dark room. I’m right behind them. I know what’s happening but they don’t. There’s a hissing sound. The rogue notices it at the same time as Melanie the Cleric.
‘It very dark in here,’ Daven says.
‘What’s that noise?’ Tigorno asks.
‘What noise?’ Grimdark shakes his head. ‘Wissard is useless. Where is light spell?’
But Tigorno’s preoccupied; he’s looking all around. Grimdark grunts in condemnation. ‘No problemo. I have torch in my backpack,’ and he begins to rummage in his pack.
Treebeard the druid speaks for the first time, ‘I’ve got a light spell — Faerie Fire.’
Melanie shakes her head. ‘I’d go easy on the fire.’
‘Yeah, smells like gas of some kind,’ Bilbo says.
‘It’s okay,’ Treebeard says. ‘My spell isn’t inflammatory. It’s more like a phosphorescence.’
Melanie nods. ‘Ah okay. That should be fine.’
‘Yeah,’ Bilbo agrees. ‘Go for it.’
‘Then we can see where the hell we are,’ Daven says.
Grimdark pulls out a torch from his pack, puts it between his knees and gets out a flint and steel. ‘Good. Just a second.’
They all turn to stare at him, but there’s a spark as Grimdark strikes the flint against the steel and an almighty boom as the gas ignites and blows them to kingdom come.
Bilbo is slain by explosion: 250 xp
Melanieoxoxo is slain by explosion: 350 xp
Daven is slain by explosion: 350 xp
Tigorno is slain by explosion: 350 xp
I hear somebody stumbling around in the smoke, coughing uncontrollably. ‘What happen?’ Grimdark asks.
‘You blew them up with your torch,’ Treebeard the druid says. I can hear the ice in his voice.
‘I blew? No.’ Grimdark shakes his head. ‘I could not blow. Was gas.’
The ghosts of the four dead adventurers shimmer nearby before winking out one by one to go to where they’re bound. Ghosts can’t speak, which is probably a good thing right now.
Treebeard says, ‘Yes, you blew them up.’
Grimdark becomes visible as the smoke dissipates. He seems taken aback and rubs his big seamed forehead with a sooty hand. ‘I sorry. I not die because of huge hitpoints.’ He nods wisely.
Treebeard is still pissed off. ‘I’ve got high fire resist, so I was okay. But this is messed up. Let’s quit.’
Grimdark shakes his head. ‘No, no.’
Treebeard starts to argue. ‘Look, this is a Level 12 dungeon. You’re only Level 9, and I’m Level 7. We’re not going to do this.’
Grimdark grits his teeth. ‘No, I not give up. I not coward.’
Teebeard tries to sound reasonable. ‘Listen, I’m not a quitter, but this is unwinnable.’
Grimdark stares at the druid with bloodshot eyes, pink and glaring in his smoke stained face. ‘You not quit then. I simple. We go. Win win. We get loot and xp?’ The barbarian tilts his big head and smiles endearingly.
Treebeard shakes his head and pulls at his beard. ‘I don’t know…’
Grimdark claps the druid on the shoulder. ‘Yes. We go. I need you to heal me.’
Treebeard sighs as Grimdark walks through the room to the next door, but the barbarian is striding forward unconcerned.
You’ve got to love this guy.
3
Fight, fight, fight (fight)
Only Grimdark and Treebeard of the original adventuring party make it to the Fire Dwarf Forges and grumpy, muscled dwarf smiths rush at them wielding massive hammers.
Treebeard doesn’t look confident, but Grimdark is in his element as he rages on. I’ve followed them down and the light from the forges is better so I can see the change of hue as Grimdark’s Rage effect makes him go red then green and back again.
Grimdark screams and roars as he engages the dwarf smiths, swinging his axe and ignoring the blows of the enraged dwarfs. He scatters the little fellows like a bull running through a herd of cats. Occasionally Treebeard throws him a heal, which to my amusement is green tinged druid heal, rather than the silver-tinged healing spells of the clerics. Treebeard mutters druidic words and summons a massive alpha-wolf which lays about it, all slavering tongue and snapping fangs. The dwarfs’ morale begins to crack and the little guys look dismayed. Grimdark chops them into chunks and even though they are my mobs he’s dicing up, I have to own to a grudging respect for the crazy barbarian.
Treebeard is no slouch either and he throws open his hands and glass-sharp splinters of wood shoot out, like so much natural buckshot, slicing up more dwarfs. Soon, the stone floor is a sticky mess of blood and dwarf beard hairs matted in and then the dwarfs are slaughtered to the last one.
Grimdark puts down his axe and leans on it, panting. ‘Xp, xp, xp! I love it!’ Treebeard shakes his head and pats the wolf.
Just then more dwarfs, this time armoured halberdiers, rush in to take them on.
‘Heal me up Treeman!’ yells Grimdark as he turns to face the newcomers with a snarl, his ginger braids flying. ‘Watch how good I is. I use Bloat!’ he screams, smashing down on the first dwarf and cutting him clean in half from nape to chaps, or the other way round.
Treebeard speaks magic words and green tendrils like some kind of weird ivy snake over the ground, wrap around the dwarf legs and drag them in to deliver them as dinner to the big wolf.
‘Heal me up, Treeman!’ Grimdark shouts again, after getting jabbed in the pectoral muscle by the pointy end of a dwarf halberd.
‘Treebeard,’ The druid responds.
‘Beardie tree. Whatever. I need heal.’
With a resigned gesture, Treebeard heals up the raging barbarian as Grimdark decapitates another dwarf.
There are four dwarfs left, and I am tempted to help the dungeon mobs out, but that wouldn’t be fair, as I’m Level 17 and Treebeard’s only Level 9. Still, these dwarfs are Level 12 and should be more of a match for the crazy twosome.
In fact, it’s only Grimdark who’s crazy, Treebeard seems sensible. As if in weird synchronicity with my words, as Grimdark hacks down another dwarf, he is surrounded by a blue glow, as is Treebeard. Grimdark throws back his head and yells in triumph, ‘I level, I goddam level. I beat this bitch dungeon, yes sirree!’
So now he’s Level 10. Treebeard says, ‘I’m Level 8 now too.’
Grimdark takes a break from killing while his final opponent backs away warily. He turns to Treebeard with a puzzled look on his face. ‘You Level 8 too?’
Treebeard nods.
‘But you not Level 8 too, because, I Level 10, so not too.’
It’s Treebeard’s turn to look puzzled. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘You not too. I not Level 8.’
‘Huh?’
With this, the remaining dwarf halberdier rushes at Grimdark, who isn’t looking. He’s about to get him when Treebeard’s wolf companion darts forward and rips out the dwarf’s throat.
Treebeard says, ‘I don’t know why I joined this group.’
Grimdark laughs. ‘I join because of Melanieoxoxo. She pretty.’
‘She’s a toon. She doesn’t look like that in real life.’
‘No? Is she not modelled on herself?’
‘Are you modelled on your real life look?’
‘Of course.’
‘Really? You’re a six foot six hugely muscled ginger guy who goes around with no shirt?’
Grimdark nods then says, ‘Of course in winter in my country is very cold, so I wear shirt then for sure. And coat.’
Treebeard sighs and says, ‘Let’s go on. I want to finish this dungeon.’
‘There are many levels. It take a while.’
Treebeard looks at the ground. ‘Or die. I could die. That would be okay.’
Grimdark steps back and puts a consoling arm around Treebeard’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, little man. I take care of you.’
The druid mutters, ‘Please, let’s just go.’
They step forward, picking up random low level loot and killing a few more mobs. Just a bit further on and they will reach the mini-boss fight. My wizard, Tye is boss of this level. He’s got himself in a luxurious bedroom with flame effect decorations and a four-poster bed. I go ahead of the adventurers to watch Tye do his stuff.
As they come close, Tye steps to the door, blue-robed and smoking a cheroot. ‘Hist!’ he says, overacting and placing a hand to his ear. ‘Something wicked this way comes to disturb my well-earned rest.’ He takes a theatrical drag of his cheroot, throws back his head and blows the smoke up into the air. For good measure he brushes back his orange locks from his forehead.
He can’t see me due to my Observation Mode. I’ve never really seen him with players before, but I might have guessed he’d milk his role like some kind of Hollywood Z-lister.
Grimdark is coming down the passage. He sees Tye. ‘Ah, you evil little rut. I finish you off now. Your career of evil is finish.’
Treebeard says quietly, ‘I think it’s runt, not rut.’
Grimdark waves the druid’s his grammatical concerns. ‘Whatever.’
I know that Tye cannot bear comments about his stature. His brow furrows. He jabs a finger at Grimdark. ‘Who you calling a rut?’
‘Why, you, you ginger failure.’
Tye plants his feet. ‘I’m not a failure, and who the hell are you calling ginger, you ginger freak?’
‘I not ginger, I merely auburn. But you, you carrot-top!’ He guffaws and Tye who’s had enough mutters arcane syllables, wiggles his fingers and sends a fireball scudding across the room to explode into Grimdark with a blast of heat and the stink of sulphur.
Grimdark reels back, singed. ‘Hey! Heal me Treeman, Beardie.’
Treebeard sends green healing.
Grimdark looks thoughtful and says, ‘Hang on.’
Tye shakes his head in disbelief. ‘Hang on? You joking me?’ Then he sends a fireball at Treebeard, noticing the druid for the first time. The fire streaks across the room and hits the druid, but he has very high fire resist and he survives it. His wolf, however, does not.
Treebeard howls in anguish, watching the crisped wolf fade out of existence. ‘You killed Joe!’ He turns at Tye and fires a handful of wood splinters at him. They hit Tye who stumbles back from the impact, blood spouting out through his blue robes.
‘Good,’ Grimdark says. ‘I put one hundred skill points into Bloat. Now I really Bloat and Rage!’ When he asked for time, he must have been allocating skill points he got from levelling. Grimdark’s face contorts and he goes big and green. I’m guessing he’s increased his hit points and maybe his damage too. With a scream, he rushes at Tye, axe raised. Tye counters with a Flaming Ray that hits the barbarian in his bare chest. Grimdark looks down at the black and bloody hole in his chest and roars in anger.
Treebeard fires more splinters at Tye. Tye looks badly hurt and he darts back into his bedroom, glugging down a blue healing potion — one of Bernard’s best.
Again, I’m tempted to help, but I can’t. This has to be a fair fight.
Grimdark rushes into the bedroom after Tye and stops at the threshold to look around at the dancing blue flames on the ceiling and the cloth-of-gold drapes around the four poster. He whistles in admiration. ‘Nice pad.’
Treebeard yells, ‘Get him you oversized dope.’
Tye blasts Treebeard with a Flaming Ray. The druid is not totally immune to fire it seems, and he catches light. It’s a neat graphical effect, but it doesn’t slow him. He fires more splinters. Tye rolls on the ground, trying to get under the bed, but cracks his head against the ceramic chamber pot, there for dungeon-dressing purposes only.
Grimdark raises his axe and slams it down to where Tye was a second before. The blade clangs against the stone flagstones in a scraping of sparks.
Tye is under the bed. I’m guessing his healing potion was on cool-down so he’ll have to wait a second. Treebeard mutters magic words and his ivy tendrils snake out again, disappearing under the bed before they pull out a writhing Tye. Tye tries to get off a Flaming Ray, but he’s bound up tight by the druid’s tendrils. He throws up his hands to ward off the shooting splinters but takes them full in his chest. He rolls and reaches for the blue healing potion, but before he can raise it to his swollen lips, Grimdark brings down his mighty axe on the wizard’s head killing off my little buddy Tye. I wince, but there’s nothing I can do.
The wizard’s ghost shimmers and vanishes back to his spawn point at Silver Drift Mine.
‘Die, little ginger!’ Grimdark shouts, then licks his lips. ‘Good Xp from the little rut, no?’
Even Treebeard’s smiling now. ‘Yeah, good job, Grim.’
The barbarian chortles. ‘Yeah, is good. Good Grim!’
‘Let’s look round for loot.’
They search and find some gold and some Healing Potions (50) and then in the wizard’s bookcase to the side of the bed, he finds the prize loot. Treebeard pulls out a heavy leather tome and leafs through the parchment pages. It’s red leather with gold letters. ‘Hey, this looks special,’ he says. Grimdark comes over and snatches it out of his hand. Treebeard is outraged. ‘Hey, man, I found that first.’
‘It’s instanced,’ Grimdark says, losing his accent and for the first time I realise he is only playing the role of the dumb barbarian. ‘There’s one for you too.’
Treebeard looks back at the bookcase and pulls out a duplicate tome to the one Grimdark has. The barbarian winks at him. ‘Grimdark smart, huh?’
Treebeard regards him warily. ‘Grimdark, smart, for sure.’
‘So what is?’
Treebeard’s still suspicious. ‘You know what it is.’
‘No, I merely dumb barbarian. I can’t read.’
I know what the tome is. It’s the boss loot from Level 1 and pretty generous too. It’s a 150 skill boost tome. Each player can only use it once for any skill. Grimdark grabs the book, concentrates hard on it and then a graphic effect of a rain of golden runes appears in the air in front of him. ‘Haha! Free skill points. I put them in Bloat!’
‘I guessed you might,’ Treebeard says.
‘You do what?’
‘Though it would be best if I put a hundred in Natural Healing and fifty in Magical Beast.’
‘Good. I no understand your fancy druid magic, but you are wise. Tree Man.’
‘Treebeard.’
‘Sure. Let’s go.’
They find a chest containing more gold and some low grade weapons, but are pretty pleased with the tomes, as they should be. They look around the level and before long find the stairs leading downstairs. As they are about to descend, Grimdark sniffs. ‘Funny smell.’
‘Acid,’ Treebeard says.
I smile. Right again.
‘I go first.’
Treebeard says, ‘I’ve got acid resist.’
‘Give to me?’
‘Sure.’
Treebeard mutters magic word and gives acid resistance to the barbarian. At the bottom of the stairs, Grimdark runs into the Acid Shower trap. Between his bloated hit points and the acid resistance, it hardly touches him. It’s a Level 13 trap too. They move on.
They get so far down the rocky stone passage and there’s a grinding noise of stone upon stone. Grimdark turns round as an Acid Golem detaches
itself from the wall.
‘Good,’ Grimdark snarls. ‘I kill this.’
4
Aceeed!
Grimdark smacks the Acid Golem with his huge great-axe, but it keeps on coming. He darts a look over his left shoulder to see another Acid Golem detaching itself from the wall. Huge and knobbly with green holes for eyes and huge hands, it reaches for the barbarian. Treebeard saves his life by conjuring more Ivy Tendrils that wrap around the second golem’s legs, slowing it while Grimdark deals with the first.
‘Die, die, die, die!’ Grimdark yells as he rhythmically pounds the stone creature with his axe. The creature reaches and grabs him, its stone fingers gripping into the barbarians tree-trunk like arms.
‘Heal me, Tree Man.’
Treebeard grunts. He’s got his own problems. The ivy clad second golem has now identified the druid as enemy number one — technically known as getting its aggro — and is lumbering towards him, snapping off ivy roots as he goes. With a mystic word, Treeboard conjures up his wolf, miraculously reborn. The canine companion leaps at the golem but hardly slows it down. Reaching into his inventory, Treebeard pulls out a knobbly club — technically known as a Shillelagh. It glows green with pleasing gold swirls coming off it, so I know it is magically enhanced. Treebeard leaps forward, raises his club and rains violence upon the shambling stone monster.
In front of him, Grimdark looks horrified as the Acid Golem fumbles for his codpiece, no doubt intending to give a good stone fingered squeeze of whatever plums Grimdark keeps in there. The barbarian snatches the golem’s hand with a ‘how dare you!’ Then he follows up by jamming the head of his axe into the things stomach. I see dust and pebbles fall away and Grimdark has made a hole in the beast. It spits acid into his eyes, and the barbarian reels back, screaming and dabbing at his face with his left hand, his great-axe lolling uselessly in his right. ‘Heal me, Tree Man!’
The druid is trying to help, but his enemy is still fighting him. With a mighty thwack, Treebeard smashes down his club and knocks off his golem’s right arm. The wolf is still at it, worrying and biting. I see for the first time the wolf’s teeth are iridescent blue, like the shimmering light inside the mineral labradorite. That must be the druid spell Magic Fang. It’s making a difference too as the wolf has half chewed through the golem’s mighty leg. Treebeard turns and flashes green healing at the barbarian. He mutters some words and renews the Acid Resist spell too, though it can hardly have lapsed so early.
