by J D Astra
The thief caught the vial, mumbling, “Shuddup,” before tossing it back. Cutter laid into Jack’s less-than-spectacular looks and clumsy footing. They were so like children, finding joy in even the darkest place, at a critical time. It was kinda nice having them around, if for nothing more than their silly banter.
I turned to Otto. “Looks like this is our only option.”
Otto growled as he eyed the mercenary, then whispered, “I don’t trust him.”
“You and me both, but this is the hand we were dealt, and honestly, we’re pretty lucky this dude’s still alive. We can turn back, forget everything, and just go about our merry way.” I glanced at Morgan. “Or we can pay him half our gold, see what’s in that chest, and finish this quest.”
Otto mulled it over, gritted his tusk-like teeth, and nodded. “I’m with you, flame-lady.”
I turned back to the group and declared loudly, “I’m in.”
Cutter’s lip curled up in disgust. “You’re gonna give this git half of your gold to open a door?”
“No.” I looked to Morgan. “Anyone who wants to go forward is going to give him half their gold, and he’s going to open the door, fight with us, and then”—I pulled up close to the mercenary—“he’s not going to tell anyone about this dungeon or who was here, ever. Right?”
Morgan wriggled a bit, trying to pull his arm out for a handshake I guessed, but Flame of Holding didn’t budge. He settled for a smile instead. “If that is the deal, I agree to the terms.”
“You know I won’t let you go alone,” Otto grunted, then tossed a satchel of gold at Morgan’s bound feet.
Cutter looked to Jack and whine-mumbled something about, “I came here to make money, not lose it.”
I dispelled Flame of Holding and dropped a sack of 684 gold down at Morgan’s feet. He stretched, took his time making sure each limb was sufficiently worked out, then scooped up the money.
“Jack, are you coming?” I stood next to Morgan and Otto at the door to the boss room.
My old college friend nodded. “Yeah, what the hell. We came this far.”
“But Jack,” Cutter urged. Jack cut him off with a wave of his hand and tossed his own sack of gold toward the mercenary. Cutter growled, fished a bag out from under his tunic shirt, and threw it at Morgan.
“Ready yourselves,” the merc barked in a baritone voice. “What lies beyond this door will likely claim one of our lives, if not more. If you prefer it not be you, make the necessary preparations now.”
I had 20 stat points and 4 ability points just sitting there. My eyes landed on Otto, then Jack and Cutter. If we were going to have a real fighting chance, I’d need to apply those points. The dread of the little red reminder of a personal message swirled in my gut.
I popped open my character sheet and focused my eyes on the image of my character. Even my avatar’s face had little creases of worry in it. I put 6 more points each in Intelligence and Spirit, then 8 in Vitality.
Next, the abilities. I’d avoided the general Sorceress tree for the most part, but now it was time to dig into it. There were other people on the line, and I needed to provide support for them. I dropped 1 point in [Caster’s Spark], increasing party members’ Spirit regeneration by .2 x my character level/second. Right now, that evened out to about 6 Spirit/second. Not too bad.
One more point for [Magnus Armor], as its benefit to the whole party was clear, and 1 point for [Immunity Aurora], which increased all party members’ resistances to elemental, holy, shadow, disease, and poison damage by a flat 5%. Pretty intense.
The blinking red [1] called to me, and I thought maybe it would be best if I checked it, just to see if she had already sent someone after us. Maybe we needed to wait on the boss in case of an ambush. I bit my lip. I didn’t want to freak myself out, but if she let on about sending someone to take us out in that message, I needed to know.
I selected the social tab and went to my personal message. My ribs suddenly felt too narrow for my guts, causing my breathing to drop into shallow gasps as I read the title of the message. [Touch ANYTHING and you will regret whatever idiot impulse drove you...] It was cut off. Shit. Shit, damn, balls, hell.
The trembling in my shoulders shook the cowl from my head, and I straightened. Find your strength. Naitee’s reminder blared in my head. I needed to hold it together. I opened the message.
<<<>>>
Personal Message
I don’t know how you came to have Mr. Carrera’s Scroll of Allegiance, since I delivered it to Osmark myself, but I swear by all the gods, goddesses, devils, and demons, if you touch a single thing in that dungeon, I will spend the rest of eternity delighting in your torture, and anyone who colluded with you. But it could go differently, Abby, and that’s your choice.
There’s still time to get your mother in the game, and I know how much you begged her to join you. We could get her for you if you turn back now and leave the dungeon untouched, or we could do much worse with her if you don’t.
Consider it, Abby.
Sandra
<<<>>>
My mother.
I reread the message twice more as my breath caught in my chest. Sandra was the kind of person to make good on a threat like that. Sandra could go get her, force her into a pod, make a character for her, and pull her into the game against her will. She could do that.
But no. This close to the end, Sandra had few resources on the outside, and I doubted she’d spend them on getting my mother. She would still try to make good on the first threat, capturing all of us and torturing us for eternity. But what if we could save this new world for everyone?
I closed the menu and looked to Otto, who stared blankly at the wall, likely digging around in his own character sheet. He was still code, he was just ones and zeros executing on a server somewhere deep in the earth... but he was my friend. I didn’t want him to be tortured for eternity.
Jack and Cutter were play-sparring, and the Warlock summoning his horde of magical skeletons and rock demons. I shimmied closer to Otto, the urge to tell him of the dangers once more driving me forward.
“Otto,” I whispered, and his vacant gaze snapped to my face.
His eyes widened. “What is it?”
“Sandra. The door was rigged somehow like we guessed. There’s no indication she’s sent anyone for us, but... if we take anything she’ll want our heads. Ours and Jack’s.”
Otto’s face relaxed. “I’ve been threatened by the Viridian Empire before, and I’m still here,” he smirked, but it was no comfort. He hadn’t really been threatened before. He hadn’t existed before I got here.
“Loosen up, flame-lady. We’re going to take down whatever is on the other side of that door. We’re going to find out what’s in that chest. We’re going to stop Osbark.”
“Osmark,” I corrected, and he grinned, nudging me.
Otto’s bunched cheeks flattened as his expression became placid, and he placed both hands on my shoulders. “Eldgard is not a small place. It will be very difficult for her to find us.”
I nodded, taking a deep breath, then another, and blowing it out hard. My old tricks from back when I had a body still seemed to work, and my stomach tightness dissipated.
“Okay,” I declared to the party, “let’s do this thing.”
Otto took the lead and pointed us into position. “Cutter, Grim Jack, stealth and drop behind me. Mercenary, bring your minions about me. I want to be able to charge the boss and get aggro, so I don’t want any fodder getting in my way. I’ll need two solid hits. Two!” He held up two fingers to Cutter.
“Yeah, alright, I got it.” Cutter waved him off.
“Abby.” He said my name with a certain kind of relief and fondness. “Stick to the rear with the merc, drop all your Burning Afflictions and keep them up, hold AOEs for swarms.”
I nodded along as he laid out the game plan I was already thinking of. We’d grown used to each other’s company and accustomed to fighting together. I already knew his rules, why t
o follow them, and how to combo hit with him. We were a destruction dynamo.
“Everyone ready?” Morgan called as we pulled into our battle formation.
“We are as ready as we will ever be, mercenary,” Otto spat the word, then shot a glare over his shoulder. “One thing, though. If you betray us as you betrayed your former master, I will find you. And I will end you. One way or another, I will end you.”
Morgan clicked his tongue. “Keep me well supplied with gold, and we won’t find ourselves at cross purposes.
“Now,” the Warlock said, grinning wickedly, “shall we?”
Death Dilemma
THE WARLOCK MURMURED and chanted, his hands glowing with an otherworldly blue light. He swept them open wide, and the door shuddered. Thump, thump, creeeak. The once locked door swung open, revealing a massive chamber eerily reminiscent of the chamber the Hoardling Drake had been camped in, except five times as large.
The doors came to a halt with a massive boom that shook the dust from the cracks above. We all stared in wonder, our breaths held in collective silence. Then, Otto bowed his head and spoke. “I might see you soon, don’t be too mad.”
But who was he speaking to? It didn’t sound like a prayer, not one I’d utter at least. Was he speaking to someone in the afterlife?
Before I could ask, he stole into the room with sword held at the ready, the conjured minions surging around him. I lost sight of Jack and Cutter as they pulled off to the left and the right, cloaked in stealth.
“After you, flame-lady.” Morgan grinned.
I filled my lungs with stale cavern air and followed after my faithful NPC. Red appeared in the corner of my vision, and a blinking [1] popped into view. Oh, shit. The boss room door was rigged too, I should’ve known. I kept a steady pace and opened the menu.
<<<>>>
Personal Message
You should’ve taken my offer. You’re dead, Abigail Hollander. No, better than that. You’re mine, forever. And your mother? She’ll wish you were never born.
Sandra
<<<>>>
I slapped the menu shut, my heart slamming away at a breakneck pace. My mind traced the possibilities of our demise. Die at the hands of whatever boss—who was seemingly absent from the room—lurked here. Die at the hands of Sandra over and over again. Die at the hands of Carrera after weeks of torture.
I scanned the room. These walls were lined with murals of a much different kind from the rooms behind us. Gruesome images of human torture and sacrifice brought a new sense of heightened awareness to the fact that if we opened that chest, Sandra would hunt us for eternity. I didn’t want Jack to die, though he would respawn. Otto would be gone forever. And my mother... No, Sandra wouldn’t waste the energy getting her.
We could still turn back. We could leave the chest untouched and walk out of here scot-free. Or could we? What if Sandra had already told Osmark? Even if she hadn’t, what if Sandra made it her personal quest to destroy me now for defying her?
“Are you with us?” the merc murmured to me.
What was “being with them” truly? Standing beside them and fighting the boss? Maybe. Saving them from eternal torture that could come from looting that chest?
But if we didn’t loot it, the entirety of Eldgard would fall under Osmark’s control with no one to understand how he got there and no one to know how to remove him from power. The remainder of humanity would be ruled by cocaine dictators and corrupt politicians for however long the servers held out. The possibility of peace, destroyed.
The answer was clear. I couldn’t allow it. I would sacrifice everything to ensure the safety of these millions of people and NPCs.
I held a fireball in one hand. “I’m with you.”
As we made our way deeper, the room’s focal point became clear: another ring of Stonehenge-esque runes, all engraved with green glowing sigils that felt corrupt. Just looking at them made my skin crawl. Weak light streamed in from a hole in the cave ceiling, casting a glow on the star of the show: the boss.
At the center of the semicircle sat a hulking, gnarled, pale-white tree, dead as winter. It was scrawny, but intimidating, and though completely placid right now, it was definitely the thing that was about to rip into us. Below, at the base of the unholy arboric beast, was a decadent chest accented in gold and silver.
Otto’s head whipped around, and his steely gaze landed on Morgan. “Where’s the boss? I told you betrayal would be met with swift violence, sellsword.”
“Just because I was hired for this quest doesn’t mean I know what we’re up against here.” The Warlock gave a sheepish shrug. “Not the specifics, anyway.”
I’d played way too many games to not know this song and dance. The boss wanted us to get in close, that’s why the chest was at the base of the trunk. It wouldn’t strike until we got in range.
“The chest, Otto. Open the chest, and I’ll bet we flush this thing out.” My voice was weaker than I’d wanted it to be.
Otto nodded, the nerves audible in his unusually loud grunt of approval. He was scared to get that close. I was scared for him to get that close.
“Everyone take your positions,” he barked to the invisible forces and the Warlock’s minions.
I got just within range of the tree; sixty feet out was as far as I could be for all my spells. The summoned minions spread out around the tree, and the Warlock pulled up next to me.
“This is going to be a show,” he sniggered, and I gave him a narrow sidelong glance. At the back of my mind, I sort of hoped this tree-monster would whoop his ass. Otto bent down, rubbed his hands together like in the scene from Indiana Jones, then reached for the latch of the golden chest.
All at once, the room exploded in a cacophony of moaning wood and movement. My knees buckled as the ground shook like a magnitude 4 earthquake beneath our feet, and the aberrant tree jerked forward, then up, up, and up. The trunk sprouted from the rotted, bone-strewn earth until a ghastly, loose-skinned face, not unlike Grandmother Willow with fangs and a single eye, broke free of the dirt.
Morgan and I stared, mouths open, as the [Greater Corrupt Valdgeist] bared its six-inch fangs and yawned. This was nothing like the Greater Valdgeist from above. This thing was a nightmare come to life. The boss bellowed in defiance, strings of vile green saliva whipping from its maw as it rocked the cavern with its war cry.
The nightmare tree-creature snapped a massive branch at Otto’s chest, cartwheeling him into the air. I lurched forward, desperate to do anything to help him, but there was nothing I could do except rally in his stead.
“Attack!” I launched my held fireball at the Corrupt Valdgeist, and Morgan’s minions responded at my command. Burning Affliction took hold on the first hit, and the tree’s lower branches were singed.
Otto landed with an “oof” five feet from me.
“Get up,” I called to him, but he lay there, immobile. “Get up, you big lazy oaf! Make your keep, or I’m not paying you for today.”
Otto groaned, rolled to his side, and downed a cherry-red potion. My racing heart fluttered with relief, then I returned my focus to the real problem: the boss.
I slammed the massive, evil Grandmother Willow with two more Burning Afflictions, followed quickly by Leaching Smolder, then unleashed hell with Fire Inside and Fireball after Fireball. The boss’ Health bar jerked down with each hit, and even Morgan was providing some good DPS with his green bolts of corrupt energy.
I still had twenty seconds on Fire Inside and targeted the boss with Rain of Fire. The red targeting circle appeared on the ground with the monstrous tree right at the center, and I unleashed fury. Some quick math told me if 80% of the spell hit the tree, with the 50% bonus from Fire Inside, I’d deal close to 60k damage. The competitive gamer in me reveled in the thought of dealing more DPS than anyone else in the party. If only we had tracking mods!
Otto finally got to his feet and charged back into the fray, just as Cutter swooped in like a feral feline. The thief growled as he planted his dag
ger in the tree’s single milky eye above the fetid maw, dropping the thing to 60% Health. There was still no sign of Jack, but that was probably a good thing; he was a bit gimp. I didn’t want him to die all because of me, anyway.
Another red [1] blinked into the corner of my vision. Not this time, bitch. She could threaten me over PMs all she liked, but this boss was ours.
Cutter was bucked free and sent sailing across the clearing. He rolled into one of the stone pillars, and the glowing runes pulsed faster. The boss roared, spreading its branches wide in a menacing stance. A putrid green mist shook free of the outstretched limbs and swept over the clearing as white, gnarled roots sprouted under Cutter and Otto.
<<<>>>
Debuffs Added
Rooted: Your party has been rooted and is unable to move; duration, 1 minute.
Toxic Cloud: Your party is poisoned: 10 points of Stamina damage/10 secs; 20 points Health damage/10 secs; duration, 2 minutes.
Death Cloud: Instantly kill all summoned creatures.
<<<>>>
Damn it. Morgan and I were just out of reach, but Otto and Cutter, who could die forever, were caught in the choking fog. Morgan’s summoned creatures dissolved into salty ash that dropped to the floor in tiny, conical piles. Otto slumped to his knees, sucking down potion after potion. The tree whipped him with smaller branches while the larger ones maintained the AOE. Despite the potions, Otto’s Health continued to plummet.
No, bullshit. Not today, not on my watch. I was going to get to the bottom of this. I was going to get into that chest. And Otto absolutely was not going to die in the process.
I charged into the cloud and popped Fire Inside, then, with my breath held to avoid the wracking coughs brought on by the cloud’s effects, opened my palms and let rip Inferno Blast. One, two, three Burning Afflictions piled up on the boss, and I hit it with Leaching Smolder again, my Spirit bar climbing like a mad hiker on a fourteener. I tried to back out of the cloud, but couldn’t! The root debuff had taken hold, wrapping tight knots of sickly white wood around my cloth boots.
