“Don’t worry about Lady C. and me. We won’t be jealous.”
I cleared my throat. “Okay, good. I mean, that’s not what I mean. Got it.”
“There’s one more thing you’re forgetting,” Lady C. said. “We both leveled when you leveled. I believe I will be able to learn a new spell.”
“Good, look through your books while you are here and see if anything comes up. If not, we’ll do that Lume Glacio one you mentioned earlier.”
Chapter Eleven: Tournament Jam
I was ecstatic by the time I arrived at Iris’ place. I’d spent the train ride over researching Monster Hunt battle strategies only to find that my gut instinct was right: putting the tank up front, followed by a second line of warriors, followed by spell casters was a tried and true strategy.
What made my strategy different was using Fujin and Altsoba as floaters. Having a fairly powerful fighter and a shifter able to help anyone in a jiffy would definitely prove useful. I read about some similar tactics, mostly using rogues, but from what I could find, not many used a magic wielder in that way.
Aside from a few attack styles, there wasn’t as much info on GoogleFace as I would have liked.
I didn’t know where Iris did her searches, but aside from a few Subreddits and a few GoogleFace groups, actual strategies were hard to come by. There were a few thousand TwitchTubeRed videos, but it would take me hours to figure out which ones were relevant, even if I paid for an AI parsing service to help me sift through the data.
Still, I was excited.
“Hi!” Iris said as she ran up to me. We stood on the sidewalk in front of her apartment, Iris in a blue, oversized sweater with a raccoon on its front and a pair of tights tucked into red Converse. I wore my typical mid-week getup: shirt, glasses, Vans, and an old military jacket.
“I got the team in order,” I told her with a smile on my face. “I placed Rose the bearadillo on the front line.”
“Bearadillo?”
“Our final Fighting Party member. It’s the one I told you about, the one in the park.”
“Good, you’ve got something big on the front line.”
“Sure do. Then the sword users, Magnus, Aya, and Lady C.; and then the spellcaster, Ophelia. Fujin is playing the role of floater, as is Altsoba the shifter.”
Iris nodded as she unlocked the door to her building’s lobby. The lobby smelt of mold, something clearly due to the fact that the building was quite old. We took the stairs to the second floor and she let me in.
“No shoes,” she reminded me.
“How many times have I been to your place?” I asked, jokingly.
“Too many.” She smiled at me as she set her bag down.
After my Vans were off, I naturally went over to her acoustic guitar and picked it up. I began playing a small intro I’d been working on. I finger picked, increasing my speed as I brought the tune up to a good stopping point.
“Nice,” Iris said as she sat across from me with a glass of tea. I’d been so focused on playing that I hadn’t heard her in the kitchen boiling the water. She took a sip from her tea and reached into a basket near her chair.
“When did you get that?” I asked as she pulled out a small child’s piano from a drawer. After another sip of her tea, she flicked the piano on and began playing some chords.
“I always like gear like that,” I told her. “You really never know what sound you’ll find.”
“Seriously.” She turned on a drum loop and nodded her head for a moment. “You hear that?” she asked, her face lighting up.
“You mean on the open high hat?”
“Yeah, that, like, millisecond of reverb. It doesn’t even last the entire note…”
“It’s cool.”
Iris started playing a simple one-two rhythm. “Remember this one?” she asked as she played it with one hand.
I nodded. It was one of our older songs, a duet of sorts. Iris sang part of it and Thad, his vocals heavily warped by a vocoder mic, sang the other part.
I liked the song, but I didn’t like his interpretation of the lyrics, which Iris wrote.
She looked to me, encouraging me to sing the next part.
I didn’t often sing in our former band, Linens. Sometimes I had a backup part, but Thad thought my singing voice was shit and that was that. But as Iris started playing again, and as she looked at me earnestly, I decided to give it my best.
After playing the synthy intro, she started up again, singing her part. It wasn’t long before I was playing along with her, my fingers moving up and down the fretboard.
“Message, message, world end, message. The rates are great, so low, so low, so low.”
I took a deep breath and sung the next line. “Give, give, take, take, open heart, break, break. It’s all the same to me, to me, to me.”
Iris stopped playing for a moment, surprised I’d taken her up on the offer.
She continued: “Island, by land, blow the bridge, my land. The goal is to expose, dispose, enclose.”
We played for another thirty minutes or so, just playing freely and seeing what came up. We hit a few chords and choruses of our former songs, but we also played some new things, especially after Iris exchanged her keyboard for her ukulele. By the end it almost felt like we were at a Linens band practice again.
But this is band practice, I reminded myself. We're still technically a band, even though Thad is long gone.
“What is it about music?” Iris asked.
“What do you mean?” I took a deep breath, finally able to relax after focusing on the music.
“You know what I mean,” she said as she placed her ukulele in its case.
I set her acoustic guitar down onto its stand and nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean, and no, I don’t know what it is about music.”
She laughed. “That’s about as good of an explanation as I can come up with.”
“What am I supposed to say? Music is the ultimate art.”
“That’s one way to put it,” she said as she approached me with her pair of NV Visors. “Kind of a strange change, right? From playing to fighting in a Monster Hunt tournament.”
“Definitely strange,” I said as I sat on to her futon. “But what can you do? We need cash, and the Dojo needs ...mirrors. It needs mirrors, two cabins too. Or Aya and Lady C. are going to kill me. Also, keep this little jam session between us. I don’t want to hear any of their crap right now.”
“Will do,” she said as she lay down next to me.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Our avatars took shape in a massive arena. The sky above us was dark, streaked in a few subtle hues not unlike the sky above our Dojo. The ground was soft, as if there had been rain a day ago, and there was no discernable scent in the air.
“This is going to be crazy,” Aya said. She brandished her buster sword and brought it to the ready.
The crowd in the stands was wild. NPCs and other players alike, they screamed, drank, and screamed some more.
Fireworks appeared in the air above the crowd, followed by the cranking sound of a great gate opening.
The first battle would begin soon.
My Fighting Party began to appear one at a time, starting with Fujin.
I remained on the sidelines with Iris. She had a smug look on her face, the front of her glasses lit up white. Lady Cassandra was near her, still looking at a book that she was reading back at the Dojo as Aya stepped past her to the front line.
“Are you ready?” I asked Lady C.
She snapped her book shut and I caught a glimpse of the cover, Lume Glacio.
“What kind of spell are you thinking?”
“From the Lume class, a spell called Chain Lightning. The spell allows me to hit multiple opponents, and as we progress, I will be able to hold the lightning longer, causing more damage. Also, for hunting, it may allow me to momentarily stun an enemy.”
We had been in such a hurry when we arrived at the Dojo, that I didn't take the time to actually see if she had
learned a new spell. “That is awesome,” I told her as I looked to Iris. “What do I do now?”
She laughed. “Stage fright?”
“Not really.” I glanced around at the cheering crowd and back to the giant battlefield that lay before us. While it was just as nerve-wracking being on a stage in front of ten people at a dive bar, I had to admit that I was feeling a little apprehensive.
A great booming voice rang out from the far corners of the stadium.
~~“Let the tournament begin! Fighting Parties get into place!”~~
Rose the bearadillo took her place at the front of the party and everyone else filed behind her, just as we had practiced.
A young girl stepped out of a portal across the battlefield. She was thin, with long stringy hair, and she wore a black dress with puffy sleeves. We never made eye contact, even as her Fighting Party formed on the opposite side of the battlefield.
“Five of the same mythcrea,” I said to Iris. The female mythcrea were all air based, Ventus class, evident in the way they floated on billowy clouds.
“A type of min-maxing,” Iris said quickly as thirty seconds appeared on the timer that had dropped into my pane of vision.
I knew, from what little I had read online, that this was my chance to set my opening move.
The opposing party’s two Hunters were male, one an ogre and the other a centaur. While I could have told they were different from the air-based mythcrea just by appearance, a red outline on the Hunters also told me of their status.
The ogre had two gnarly clubs, the centaur a golden lance. I wasn’t able to see their levels, which made deciphering how I should go at them a bit difficult.
My mind kicked into gear. “Ophelia, Sigil Curse!” I called over to her.
The Lich simply looked at me and nodded. She turned to the girl on the sidelines, her magic swelling in her hand.
“Good call,” Iris said, her glasses white as she reviewed my Fighting Party’s skills. “If we can take their mythcrea out, we’ll only have the Hunters to contend with.”
“Everyone else play defense until we find their weaknesses!” I called to the fighting party.
The timer hit zero and the booming voice rang out all around us.
~~“Begin Fight!”~~
Ophelia blasted the opposing Alpha with her Sigil Curse spell. As soon as the spell touched the girl, and before her wind-based mythcrea could even begin the fight, a prompt appeared on my pane of vision.
Weak against fire, ballistics, and psychological magic.
“Fireballs,” I told the Lich. I glanced to the Skin-Walker and shouted, “Altsoba, Fear Inducer. Aya, Magnus, Lady C., Fujin, engage hunters!”
Aya and Lady C. went to meet the ogre. Fujin, Magnus and Rose went for the centaur.
The ogre swung at Lady C. with both his clubs. She parried as Aya used her ghost limbs to throw herself into the melee.
Coming down behind the ogre, the Thulean went to work with her big blade. The ogre actually held his own for a moment, spinning to meet Aya’s attack and then returning to meet Lady Cassandra, who continued slicing at him with her two swords.
Aya was the first to draw blood.
As the ogre pivoted, his face turned from anger to shock as Aya managed to cut through his armor with her buster sword.
It was a one in a million shot, one that only hit because of an exposed portion of his body. Her blade passed through the side of his torso, dark blood spraying from the exit point.
The ogre cried out as he tried to swing his gnarled club around.
The Thulean was long gone by this point, using her ghost limbs to yank her body backwards. Lady Cassandra appeared behind the ogre and used her Time Scissors skill to cut his head clean off.
“Yes!” I cried. I looked to Iris and she pumped a fist in the air.
Ophelia brought down two of the wind-based mythcrea with her fireballs, enraged after one of them tossed Magnus to the far side of the area with a great gust of wind. The two spasmed against the ground as the fire overtook them.
Fujin continued to engage the centaur, flashing around him and confusing the four-legged foe, forcing him to slow down. Rose activated her Roll Charge ability and the sound of her hitting the centaur ricocheted to the far corners of the arena, causing gasps and cheers from the crowd.
Altsoba, finally able to reach the front of the melee, morphed into a terrifying demon with a forked tongue. Her skin was infected, covered in red splotches, her eyes suddenly gone, her arms and legs long and her lungs exposed.
Each breath in caused pulsating black veins to appear across the demon’s pale, nude body.
Two of the wind-based mythcrea simply disappeared.
Iris cheered. “Whoo! Fear Inducer is the shit! I didn’t think they’d just log out.”
The final mythcrea left standing was quickly taken down by a fireball, leaving it in a prone position.
Aya, her blade at her side, walked to the winged mythcrea and drove her blade into the back of the woman’s head. She moved to the first charred one and did the same. She reached the third charred one, just as Rose finished mauling the centaur to death.
“Finish it, Aya!”
She turned to me, smirked, and whipped her blade over her shoulder and down onto the winged mythcrea’s body, severing her torso.
~~“Match!”~~
The words appeared before me.
Winner: Chase Knowles, Alpha
Prize: 2,000 Proxima Dollars
“Two thousand Proxima dollars,” I told Iris.
“Not bad, especially for an easy fight.”
The eight of us suddenly flashed away and our avatars formed in a large room with a relaxing bath in the middle.
My bank account appeared and faded:
Proxima Dollars: $2,050
Spent: $9,950
Loan: 0
“This is where they charge up and heal for the next fight,” Iris said, before I could ask. “Think of it as a private locker room.”
“I assumed so.” I turned to the party and smiled at them: Magnus and Ophelia leaned on one another; Aya stood strong with her arms crossed over her chest; Lady C. had already sat cross-legged on the ground to look at a book; Rose was in the corner of the large space with Gobi, her cub; Fujin was floating on a cloud and meditating; and Altsoba was still in her demon form.
“How long you planning to keep that form?” I asked her.
“You don’t like it?” she said, her voice still not her own. It was melodic yet scary, as if she had run a mic through a distortion pedal.
“It’s definitely fear inducing.”
The demon’s form melted away as Altsoba’s true form took shape. “Mirrors,” she reminded me. “Or I keep this form every time we meet.”
“We will get your mirrors, I promise. And good work, everyone. The next fight starts in just a few minutes. We’ll go with a similar strategy. If Sigil Curse doesn’t work, Fujin, I want you to immediately cast Toxic Tornado. The quicker we get through the fights, the better.”
Iris nodded. “If we give our opponents time to strike and to formulate plans, then it will be much easier to lose.”
“So we have two coaches now, one Alpha and the other the Alpha’s friend?” Aya walked over to Iris and bent over in front of her. “That’s fine,” she said, inches away from her face now. “I like you.”
She patted her on the head.
“I, um, like you too,” Iris said nervously.
Chapter Twelve: Close but no Cigar
Our Fighting Party respawned on the battlefield. There was something about this field that was familiar yet different. While the throngs of screaming NPCs were still ever-present, the field was smaller, the ground rougher with ridges in some places.
“Why is the battlefield different?” I asked Iris.
“Likely your opponent paid to have a tournament space created in their advantage.”
I noticed then that all the rough ground was on our side of the field, and that the other sid
e had none of the dips and shallow holes that were prominent in ours.
“Right,” I finally said. “I remember seeing something about that in the rules.”
~~“Fighting Parties get into place!”~~
The avatar of a tall man with blonde hair and a black trench coat materialized on the opposite side of the battleground. He had an eye tattoo at the center of his forehead and there were spikes jutting out from his boots.
He looked at me, spit, and lifted two middle fingers.
Iris laughed. “Such a fucking tough guy, right? This guy is probably living in his mother’s basement in Newport.”
“Why Newport?”
She shrugged. “It was the first place that came to mind.”
A barbarian took shape on Middle Finger’s side of the arena. This guy was all muscles and armor, a huge axe gripped tightly in his hands.
He was followed by a woman in head to toe steampunk gear and a jetpack. She drew two pistols and struck an aggressive pose.
Both of them had red outlines around their bodies, indicating they were Hunters.
The rest of his Fighting Party appeared.
From what I could tell – and granted, I still didn’t have access to stats or levels – there were two healers, evident by their robes, and a fire user, a guess based on the fact that his head was aflame.
The other two Fighting Party members were pretty easy to identify. They were both some type of brawler, one a towering sasquatch and the other a small rogue with the head of a frog.
The thirty second timer appeared on the clock as my Fighting Party got into place.
“This is going to be a tough one,” Iris said.
“Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“Let me manage the back line – Altsoba, Ophelia, and Fujin – and you manage our muscle.”
“Fair enough.” I raised my hands to the sides of my mouth to relay the instructions to the Fighting Party.
~~“Begin Fight!”~~
As we had previously discussed, Ophelia tried her Sigil Curse spell and failed.
Before the opposing Alpha could offer us a smug response, Fujin cast his Toxic Tornado spell.
Monster Hunt NYC: A Fantasy Harem Adventure Page 11
