He peered at the entrance uncertainly. What kind of a farm was inside a mountain? The entrance consisted of a door twice his height, set into a frame of stones carved with foreign characters. The door bore a bronze plaque inscribed with a message:
“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
“It's kind of an inside theological joke,” Darla told him, seeing his expression. “It was supposedly on the entrance to Hell in Dante's Inferno. Some designer thought it was appropriate for a Kindred of Darkness mission.”
“Hardly a sign of welcome,” Aes commented.
A roaring from above drew his gaze. Two blue-white flames like upside-down candles descended to the hillside. As they came nearer, he could make out the huge form of Sherman above them. Moments later, the tank had settled onto the rocks beside him with an audible crunch. “Been waiting long?” he boomed.
“Sherman loves his rocket boots,” Darla remarked. “He'd be pretty frustrated in your Hellas, walking everywhere.”
“Damn straight,” Sherman agreed. “Are you ready for some serious leveling? Tufflady should be here in a minute. She's on West Coast time. Still having dinner.”
“I don't understand this,” Aes told the two of them. “I thought you said this was a farm mission. How can you grow crops underground?”
“It's gamer slang,” Darla said. She turned to Sherman. “Did you ask her to send team invites to Sam and Rita?”
“I left her a message. Don't worry, Tufflady's one of the best in the business, and I'm not just saying that because she's a tank.”
While they waited, Darla explained about the slang. “In real life, a farm is where you harvest crops year after year. In online gaming, the Players kill monsters and bad guys to 'farm' XP or harvest drops.”
Seeing his expression, she expanded upon this. “XP is short for experience. You need it to get to higher levels of power. Drops are pieces of armor, weapons, and so on that enemies leave behind when they are destroyed.”
They were on a hillside outside of Boomtown, less than half a stadion from the street level. Talking to Darla, Aes was not surprised to learn that the 300 or so podes this represented was about 300 feet in English units.
“The Jerx we fought in the building didn't seem to leave anything behind, except for their boss,” he commented.
“They were lower level; it was Sherman's mish,” she said. “This should be different. Sherman tells me his friend Tufflady is a high level Player. This is her farm, so the enemies will be scaled to her level.”
FLASH.
Aes turned, looking for the newcomer. All he could see was the rocks and boulders around them by the cave entrance.
Sherman reached out with a massive hand and patted one of the larger boulders. “Good to see you, old girl.”
The boulder unfolded. “Heya, Sherman” rumbled Tufflady. A smaller rock at the top of her, with two pinpoints of orange light roughly where eyes would be in a head, swiveled to take in Aes and Darla. “Howdy Aes, Darla. Team invites coming up.”
Aes found he was staring. A living rock? He closed his mouth.
He noticed there was no roster showing in his visual field. Darla had told him she would be dissolving their team so they could join Tufflady's team; apparently only Players on her team could enter her farming mission.
When the invitation appeared before him, he touched the 'Yes' and a new roster appeared on his left with Tufflady's portrait at the top framed in gold. Sherman's appeared below her, followed by Darla's and his own, then two others he didn't recognize.
“Nuclear Flame and QuickStone are coming to help out with debuffs and holds,” said Tufflady. “Are you sure Sam and Rita are going to be online? Their invites bounced.”
“I don't know,” Darla admitted. “I thought they were, but they might be running late.”
“Well, I've set their invites to stay open. They can join us if they come later. Let's get cracking. Aes, has anyone run you through a high level farm before?”
“No,” said Aes. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“No worries,” said Tufflady. “Here's the drill. As soon as Flame and Stone get here we all go into the door. You three hang way back; this is a level 48 mission and the Kindred in there can kill any of you with a single attack. No one is getting one-shotted on my watch.”
“I'll try not to be brave,” Aes said, smiling.
“Damn straight,” said Tufflady. “In fact, you could stay just inside the door. Since this is an instance mish, you'll get XP no matter where you are in the cave. Course that way you won't see much, but so what?”
“Don't worry,” Darla assured the rocky tank. “We'll stay way out of your way. You don't want to see what happens when Aes gets hurt. I know I don't.”
“Graphic?” said Tufflady.
“Trust me,” said Sherman. “His avatar is way too detailed for prime time. He bleeds all over his uniform. Sometimes a bone or two pokes through. It's not a pretty sight.”
“Relax,” the living boulder told Aes. “Once the action starts I will have their full attention.”
“I can believe it,” he said. “I'm glad you're on our side.”
FLASH. FLASH.
Aes blinked at the double flash. Two more figures joined them by the door. One was a man in a red and yellow skintight suit like his own. The man gave off a faint orange glow and his hands seemed to be on fire. The other was a woman. Her suit was as disturbingly snug as Darla's; what little it concealed, it implied. Aes had to force himself to look at her face as he greeted her.
Greetings all around followed, then Tufflady said “Let's go,” and opened the door. Remembering her instructions, Aes let all of the others go in before him. The door shut itself with an ominous click.
He found himself in the outer chamber of what must be an enormous cave. The walls here were dry, studded with outcroppings of blue and yellow crystals that glowed brightly enough to illuminate the interior without torches.
Proceeding along the tunnel behind the others, he bumped into Darla from behind. It was not an entirely unpleasant experience.
Halting, he peered over her shoulder. Ahead of the group were eight Kindred enemies lounging around near a bend in the tunnel. They looked like some kind of dark priests or cultists; their brown and gray hooded robes concealed all of them except the crimson pinpoints of their eyes...and clawlike hands so thin they could be skeletons.
“It's CLOBBERIN' TIME!” Tufflady roared, bounding forward.
Aes held back with Sherman and Darla. He had to smile at the way Sherman's hands clenched and unclenched; it was plain the tank was itching to get into the fight, even knowing it was out of his league.
Two of the Kindred threw knives with wavy blades at Tufflady. They bounced off her rocky skin as if they had struck the cave wall itself. Then she was on them, swinging fists that were living clubs. The two knife-throwers bounced off rocky walls and collapsed, vanquished. The other six Kindred jumped at her.
Aes checked the team roster. Tufflady's heath line was so green he couldn't even tell if she had taken any damage. He now recognized the little symbols beside each portrait as numbers, indicating the level of each Player's avatar. His was a 3; much lower than Sherman's 12 or Darla's 14.
Tufflady was a 50. So were Flame and Stone.
Darla had told him more about the game levels on the way to the cave door. Apparently it got harder and harder to level as you ascended; the XP you needed for each new level grew exponentially (a term that he now understood). If you kept going and reached level 50, you had reached the top, the 'level cap' and there was nowhere to go from there. From then on, according to her, you played for the sheer fun of it, or to seek preeminence in the Arena matches, or to help the lower levels.
Tufflady had downed another pair of her attackers. He checked her health again, saw it had dropped very slightly, and reminded himself not to send a heal. According to Darla, automated enemies went for the biggest perceived threat first. Once they locked on a danger like Tufflady or
Sherman, only a bigger threat would pull the aggro from her. Sometimes healing your tank could do it.
“That's one of the biggest differences between PvE and PvP fighting, Aes,” she had told him. “In PvP where all of the combatants are Players, not NPCs, the smart ones will usually crush the enemy's healer as soon as they can.”
Tufflady's friends, less sturdy than her, now entered the battle. QuickStone raised her hands and sent a wave of rock at the melee that crashed over them like surf, knocking them off their feet and disorienting them. Nuclear Flame drew back his right hand and hurled a fireball that exploded among them, finishing off two and damaging the others so much that Tufflady began one-punching them, killing a Kindred with each swing and jab.
As the next to last enemy in the group fell, Aes found his feet leaving the cave floor. A familiar roaring chorus of sound and light crescendoed and exploded off him, momentarily dazzling Darla and Sherman as he leveled to 4. The three 50s charged around the bend in the tunnel.
“Why,” he asked Darla, after his feet returned to the floor of the cave, “are they doing this for us...for me?”
“Because Heroes help other Heroes, Aes. You pay it forward by helping others as you have been helped, when you get a chance. They're one of the closest-knit communities on UNET.”
As Sherman followed the other three, eager to watch the combat if nothing else, Aes stepped closer to her, forcing himself to look her in the eyes. “Listen,” he began. “About earlier, when I talked about Epione, I didn't mean to–”
Darla put a finger up to his lips. “Shh,” she said. “It's all right. I think I understand, a little. Don't worry about me. Let's concentrate on getting you ready to help deal with the Devourer.”
“I can't just stay by the door,” he told her. “If they're doing all this for us when it helps them naught, I should at least be witness to their efforts.”
She smiled, making his heart beat a little faster. “Of course.”
Quickly, the two of them jogged ahead to catch up with Sherman. The tunnel came to a Y. “Crap,” remarked Darla. “Which way?”
“I think it's a little louder on the left side,” he guessed. This turned out to be correct when they bumped into Sherman. In front of him, the tunnel widened out into a large chamber. In the center was an incongruous pyramid of steps built from greenish-gray stone. At the top of it a female sacrifice writhed in blue flames as the cultists stood around her on the top tier of steps. Two of the figures wore black robes embroidered with unpleasant designs in gold and scarlet thread.
It was a tall pyramid; Tufflady was still climbing up the steps, Flame and Stone following a dozen steps behind her.
Seeing the sacrificial victim, Aes tensed and began to move forward. Only Darla's hand on his arm could have stopped him. “Aes,” she said softly, “try to remember that she's not real like you and me. Those are two level 50 bosses up there with the others. If you get their attention...” She didn't need to finish the thought. He forced himself to relax.
Tufflady had reached the top of the pyramid now. Without hesitation the living rock pile went for one of the bosses, swinging a punch that knocked the creep off the top of the pyramid; he (she?) fell over the far edge, temporarily lost from sight.
The other boss raised its hands, hurling a bolt of pure force that rocked Tufflady back slightly and destroyed a tenth of her health line. Aes clenched his jaw, forcing himself to watch without helping. He felt as useless as a the paint on a shield: a healer who could not even heal. He trembled with repressed frustration.
Tufflady ignored the minions and punched the second boss off the pyramid. “She's good,” Darla commented. “Notice how she's using the pyramid to keep the bosses from ganging up on her?”
The first boss was climbing back up. His head came up over the edge of the top. He raised his hands to deliver an attack.
He never completed the move. Tufflady swung a massive leg and kicked him off the pyramid, turning to punch two of the minions while she waited for the second boss to reach the summit. Flame hurled a fireball into the group that exploded; embers bounced down the steps, augmenting temporarily the light in the cavern from glowing crystals and torches.
Tufflady punched two more of the minions, but the second boss had still not reappeared. What could be holding him up? Aes wondered.
He soon found out, when two bosses appeared on the summit. The second boss had adapted to Tufflady's tactics and waited for the first one to catch up so they could work together. Coming up to the summit from the left and right rear corners, they were too far apart for a melee fighter like Tufflady to attack both of them before they could launch their own attacks.
The bosses attacked. Another bolt of pure force nearly toppled her from the summit. The other boss made a complicated motion with its arms, and ice formed around Tufflady, freezing her inside a massive ice boulder. Unable to counterattack, the rocky tank was helpless.
Aes held his breath, agonized for Tufflady. But he had underestimated the teamwork of her friends. From half way up the steps, Nuclear Flame raised both arms and summoned a rain of little fireballs that began striking everywhere on the pyramid's top. They pummeled friend and foe alike, damaging the bosses and melting some of the ice block around Tufflady. QuickStone made a shoving motion, sending a wave of rock that swept over the summit, damaging one boss, bowling the other off the pyramid, and smashing a filigree of cracks throughout the boulder of ice around Tufflady.
With an ear-splitting KRAK! The ice boulder exploded, raining chunks of ice in all directions that flew off in parabolas, some bits bouncing down the steps on all sides of the pyramid that were visible to him. In the center of the blast, Tufflady stood flexing her arms. She turned to her left, almost in slow motion, and brought two massive fists of rock together in a crushing move on the nearest boss's head. Despite himself, Aes flinched at the sound as the twin blow struck home. The defeated boss slumped, lifeless.
The other boss sent another bolt of force that struck her right side, knocking her health down to three quarters.
Tufflady just laughed with a sound like heavy boulders sliding across lava. “Hahaha is that the best you can do?” She moved toward the lone boss as Flame and Stone finished off the remaining minions.
Aes felt his feet leave the floor again. Once more, the energy built to a climax of pleasure and pain, then exploded off him in a burst of light in all directions as he leveled to 5.
After the last enemies in the cavern fell, Aes looked and saw Tufflady's health had dropped to slightly below three quarters of maximum. Seizing the opportunity, he ran to the foot of the stairs and stretched out his hand mentally to her shoulder. The wave of green fire swept her from toe to head. His power had grown; her health shot back up to full.
“Thanks, Aes, but you don't need to do that,” she said.
“Actually, I do, even if you can probably manage without it,” he replied. “If I'm not powerful enough to fight beside you, and it's too dangerous for me to heal you during battles, at least let me top off your health between fights. Forgive my arrogance, but it hurts to do nothing.”
“Knock yourself out,” she said cheerfully (which he assumed was not to be taken literally). “But very carefully! They are still more than 40 levels above you. There could have been one or more still here, out of your sight on the other side of the pyramid.”
“You're right,” he said, abashed. “Sorry.”
“No harm done. Ready for more?”
“Damn straight!” said Sherman, who was near leveling again himself.
“All right,” said Tufflady. “Let's get back to work.”
Chapter 45: Am-heh: meet the Buddha on the road...and eat him
Gamers and Gods: AES Page 52
