Diabettis clutched his glaive so hard his knuckles cracked. A demon with nine thousand HP was not something to be trifled with. We were all going to feel the heat.
Maestro was the first to charge. Bending low, he avoided one swish of the sword before leaping high and striking the demon across the eyes. Or trying to. The groundskeeper wasn’t so easy. As a consummate combat aurochs, it met the player with its horns and a stentorian snort, and with a shake of the head threw him against the wall with such force he couldn’t get up. Seconds later a fiery sphere flew at the stunned player, giving him no time to duck or run. His body flashed like a sparkler, and a second debuff was added on top of the stun — Burn Up.
“I’ll cover! Yasya, fix him!” shouted Diabettis, drawing the agro on himself. The girl tended to her husband, dousing the flames. After a second’s confusion I hit the demon with a weakening spell. It bawled menacingly and once more sliced the air with its flaming weapon. Diabettis danced in front of it, dodging sure-footedly, not moving closer. Eredani joined the fray, alternating demon strikes with me.
Damage inflicted
You have inflicted 361 damage: (461 magic attack) - 100 (groundskeeper protection). Total Health remaining: 7,766 out of 9,000
“Woah!” Eredani croaked and looked in surprise at his demon fish. He had happened to deal the groundskeeper a critical strike, and himself become target number one on the agro list. The demon reeled and lowered its sword, allowing the hirelings to skip closer and strike a few times, before it shook itself out of its stupor and glared at Eredani. The tiefling stepped back and swallowed hard. “Quick, somebody take it!” he tried to shout, fear straining his voice as dark root-like sprouts emerged from the floor and enwreathed him up to his waist, bereaving him of the power of movement. He struggled, but became more entangled. Even Retreat didn’t help — the bindings slackened but didn’t break, and Eredani flew a meter and immediately sprang back. Diabettis distracted the beast with a yell, but it was too late. A deadly burning ball had already left the demon’s hands in the direction of my partner.
As if in slow motion, I watched the Tiefling’s eyes widen in terror. He shrank away, throwing his hands up to protect his head, just as Yasya hurled herself at him, hoping to tear him free. She wanted to save her client from a direct plasma hit and rebirth, but she’d never make it in time.
And me? I saved a person from being burned alive, by stepping forward into the path of the fireball.
Damage sustained
Health level decreased by 1,750: 2,000 (fireball) - 250 (magic protection + damage reduction)
Remaining Health: 2,250 out of 4,000
Burn Up debuff received: you receive 200 fire-damage points once every 5 seconds for 1 minute.
It was hot. My ten percent pain threshold let me cope collectedly with the strike, but the ensuing steam-room sensation made me tense up. It was difficult to breathe, and I was forced into a long slow inhale-exhale routine. My eyes watered as if sand had been kicked in them, and my head buzzed. Yasya reacted instantly. Deserting the almost freed Eredani, she skipped over to me, forced my jaws apart, and poured two potions into my mouth: one to restore Health, the second to remove the debuff. Meanwhile Diabettis and Maestro continued their offensive on the demon. Although in truth, not to great effect.
“I’ll wait down below,” Eredani said out of the blue and disappeared down the stairs. He didn’t want to put his health at greater risk, which was understandable.
The absence of one player drastically reduced the speed with which we could destroy the demon. After thirty seconds the groundskeeper began to hammer us for all it was worth, making us flit around it like moths. One careless move and its scorching wings would prevent us from ever completing the task.
However, I was a bee with a demon-strike multi-use stinger.
Damage inflicted
You have inflicted 822 damage: (922 magic attack, critical hit) - 100 (groundskeeper protection). Total Health remaining: 1,934 out of 9,000
“Take that, beastie! The desk jockey is on the warpath! Barliona will be ours!” I emboldened myself.
The critical hit had made me a priority target, and the groundskeeper raged, “Die, traitor!” before ensnaring me for ten seconds and launching a fireball. If the half-weakened strike knocked my Health down by two thousand, it was gruesome to imagine what a full-strength hit might have done. I lurched forward as far as I could and activated Retreat, flying a couple of meters into the air before crashing back down. My restraints didn’t snap, but the required result was achieved: the fireball missed. When the dark shoots fell off, the demon hurled another one, which I easily evaded. The tactics for dealing with the boss now clear, I felt confident. A few minutes later I had my baptism of fire with a powerful mob. The beastie fell.
Reference information
Specifics of Barliona mobs
Common mob
Health: level * 100
Number of abilities: 0
Experience coefficient received by player: 1
Size of loot: 1
Rare mob
Health: level * 100 * 5* (number of players /5 + 1)
Number of abilities: 2
Experience coefficient received by player: 5
Size of loot: 2
Raider mob
Health: level * 100 * 10* (number of players /5 + 1)
Number of abilities: 4
Experience coefficient received by player: 10
Size of loot: 3
Epic mob
Health: level * 100 * 20* (number of players /5 + 1)
Number of abilities: 6
Experience coefficient received by player: 20
Size of loot: 4
When the death toll of Dorel’s Frontier demons reached eight, the first thing I did was remove the tally of sustained and inflicted damage from settings. System messages were very off-putting when they repeatedly obscured the viewer.
“Aha! Boots!” exclaimed Maestro hopefully, and an entry appeared in the group chat:
Player Maestro Tishkin discards 57
The hirelings’ footwear was common, with no enhancements: minimum protection, maximum discomfort.
Player Kvalen discards 97
“They’re collecting luck, while regular guys are running around barefoot,” said Maestro in a fit of anger. His mood had plummeted.
“Nobody’s stopping you boosting luck too.” Eredani was back and on my side.
“Yeah, wicked. One’s boosting luck, and the other — cowardice!” Maestro lost his rag and aped Eredani: “ ‘I’ll wait down below!’ Jesus!”
“Maestro!” The group leader tried to knock the crabby hireling down a peg.
“Maestro what? We’re all adults here. I don’t have to censor myself.” Self-restraint evidently ran in the female side of the Tishkin family. Maestro continued to bawl Eredani out: “Do you need it spelling out just what you are? He puts his ass on the line for you, and you do a runner!”
“Diabettis, chill your fighter out. The agreement explicitly defined your work, not our participation. Eredani hasn’t violated anything.” I understood it was no solution to the conflict, but I couldn’t reveal the truth, because it wasn’t my secret. Eredani was silent, not wishing to justify himself, which was his right. Curiously, it was Diabettis who came to the rescue.
“A hundred?” he asked Eredani, all attention on the tiefling. The latter’s eyelids closed a fraction. “You have to warn us about things like that. We don’t poke our noses into other people’s business, but we have to consider them in our game plan.”
Maestro waited in silence for a righteous decision.
“Yasya, Maestro, we rely only on Kvalen.”
“What, that’s it?” Maestro was restive. “Then we take all the loot as compensation. That’s fair.”
“No. We leave everything as agreed,” retorted Diabettis.
Maestro didn’t react, which spoke of Diabettis’s cast-iron authority as leader. Respect! Yasya didn’t give a hoot about
the infighting. As a true hostess she was sifting methodically through the loot.
“Anything there, Yas?”
“A ring. Rare.” She posted a description in the chat. Everybody cast their dice, and the object went to Eredani. The system was taking the piss. He clenched his fists in victory, transforming the blank ring into an object with +1 to Resilience and +10% to pain reduction. For him it was a gift from the gods.
My boots also turned out not half bad. Fashioned from thick leather, they added +6 to Stamina and Intellect, and an extra +5% to critical strike, and basically turned me into a killer. They fitted like a second skin; so comfortable and natural I didn’t understand how I’d ever lived without them. Only my hooves remained naked.
“There’s more.” Yasya continued to gut the groundskeeper, and posted the next object in the chat.
Key. 1 of 4
Not a word more.
We exchanged quizzical looks. No one knew anything.
“There’s a secret room somewhere at the Frontier?” Eredani ventured hesitantly, and put the key in his inventory. “What kind of groundskeeper doesn’t have a key? We’re losing time. Come on, move out!”
Our demon victim had a separate suite of rooms, strewn with all manner of junk. Wading through the mountains of furniture, appliances, and other clutter, we were able to identify the groundskeeper’s workplace. Another touch of humor from the developers. For bad is the groundskeeper who considers himself not a general director! In the centre of the huge storeroom stood a no less huge… throne! Behind a desk. Funny.
Yasya set about emptying the drawers, tipping the contents on the floor, and the small objects turned to digital dust before they could reach the mosaics under our feet. Objects in the office were not meant for players.
While the hirelings and Eredani were combing the premises for anything saleable, I scrutinized the documents on the table. Floor plans, graphs of analytical data, descriptions of logistics flows. How I missed all that! Not long ago I’d been a normal person; now I was a fool with digital boots on my digital hooves.
Thumbing through the papers, I found three key points. The graphs were becoming more interesting. Ireness had granted us the ability to understand not only the speech, but also the script of the demons. The first graph showed the dynamics of prixi consumption by year. The second was a breeding plan to supply the frontier with the beasties. The third was a prediction of demon growth. And the fourth — their required feeding volumes.
“What are you doing?” Eredani stood next to me. “We have to go.”
“Wait.” I was totally engrossed in the papers. Ignoring him, I returned to the table and the floor plans. If this really was the frontier, we were standing at a concentration point of key lines. Which meant the last page was a plan of the floor we were on. A small, yet pivotal moment in understanding what was written. I looked back at the graphs. The dynamics of prixi consumption. Four spates clearly stood out on the overall graph, repeating every month. Four. But only three nodal points. What if the groundskeeper was one of the points? That meant there were rare mobs in possession of the remaining keys.
“We still have three to find,” I concluded, proud of myself.
“You only just got that?” said Maestro. “If a key is the first of four, there are three left. True?”
“True, but I know where to look for them.”
Everybody stopped. “Did you read that in those papers on the table?” Eredani asked. I nodded and showed him my discovery. My cartography skill did not allow me to visualize the map for the others, but he could do it.
“So what is it?” A 3D projection of the frontier lit up in front of us. The data was incomplete, and much of the space empty, but three red dots immediately arrested all eyes.
“In front of you is a layout of Dorel’s Frontier, as the groundskeeper needed it. The dotted line is the way from the place of consumption, i.e. the prixis’ enclosure, to the three rare mobs.”
“Yasya, not too hastily, but open the door. It’s some kind of hall, judging by the size.” Diabettis instantly found an application for the map. The girl nodded and set to tinkering with the locks. A quiet click, and through the narrow gap we saw a training room. Just like all creatures in Barliona, demons also needed to hone their skills. The presence of such a hall next to the prixi stables was thoroughly logical. Tired hungry demons had to fortify themselves without having to go too far.
A good few demons were training. We couldn’t count them all, but there were definitely several dozen regular warriors.
“Maestro, you take the right flank. Yasya, left. I’ll take the middle. Go!”
At last I saw with my own eyes the advantage of our class. Demon hunters specialized in skirmishes in open spaces, where there was room to maneuver, accelerate, and retreat, rather than skewering their chests on lances in a tight corridor. Three lightning flashes danced around the hall, leaving nothing but bodies and loot in their wake. The difference between thirteen and lowly level nine was catastrophic for the latter. Eredani and I could do nothing other than enjoy the process of levelling up. Sixteen demons got me to level eight; nineteen — to level nine. We ran out of opponents before making it to level ten. I couldn’t imagine how I was going to live after the nursery without a sixfold increase in Experience.
Dorel’s Frontier task progress
You have destroyed 53 out of 222 demons.
“Embody,” said Yasya, sending me an exchange and showering me with blanks. Chestplates, shoulder protectors, belts, gauntlets, weapons. Forty-five objects, all for me, and absolutely gratis. The only downer was the lack of pants and footwear. Eredani continued strutting around the parquet with bare hooves, clip-clopping like a horse.
You could say I’d done my best. As soon as a fantastic common object appeared, the players drew lots and the system automatically took the embodied object from me. Seven out of forty-five — such was the result of my embodiment. I drew myself a pair of gauntlets. Only +1 to Intellect and +15 to protection from physical attack, but thanks all the same.
“Diabettis!” shouted Eredani from somewhere to the right. “Come here!” The whole group responded to the call. He pointed at a door and said, “That entrance was definitely not on the map.” Indeed, according to the blueprint there should only have been two exit points from the hall, leading to our key points. The unmarked third door was intriguing.
“This oversight needs correcting,” said Diabettis. “Yasya?” She had boosted her burglary skills so much that locks seemed to pick themselves as she drew near. Behind the door was a staircase leading down, and a breeze of cold and nastiness wafted up from wherever it led.
“But we’re on the ground floor,” exclaimed Maestro in surprise. “Where does it lead? Back to the prixis?”
“Or to the ghosts in the underground passage,” Eredani offered. He took out the map of the frontier and added the new route. “Not happening. It’s too far.”
Yasya leaned over the first step and studied it closely. “It’s a trap,” was the authoritative verdict. Gesturing us all to move aside, she placed a foot on the first step and activated Retreat. The ceiling caved in, and from among the rumble of crashing stone we heard the clicks of booby traps discharging. When caustic smoke began to belch from the rubble, we hastily retired.
When all was calm and the smoke had dispersed, we approached. The stairway was gone, as was the entranceway.
“At least we don’t have to worry about what was down there,” noted Maestro joyfully. Eredani didn’t share his delight.
“Kvalen, get your pick out.”
“What freaking pick?” the feisty player jumped in. “We agreed to cross and clear the frontier, yes? So what’s the deal?”
Frankly, the hireling had begun to bore. And although I had no desire to smash rocks, I also couldn’t publicly take his side. “Maestro, I’ve had enough of your shit. Were you hired to clear the frontier or not? So get clearing, and do it quietly. We’ll do it like this: when you realize it’s no g
ood without me, holler. Meantime, I’ll be twirling my pick.” I showily produced my tool and hefted it around in my hands.
Maestro gritted his teeth when he heard the hint at his ineptitude. Diabettis shrugged and said, “We’ll cope by ourselves. But this was a bad idea. Do you think the door’s just after the first flight?”
“Why not?” Eredani asked. “We’re in the nursery. This doorway should be a decoy. To show there’s something down there and it’s valuable. The traps are evidence of that. I don’t doubt there’s another entrance which doesn’t require digging, but it’ll be better protected. We’ll stay here.”
A Second Chance Page 31
