by G. Akella
"Set Mopsy on the ranger! Heal Krian! Focus fire the druid"
From the corner of my eye I glimpsed a druid heal-over-time that washed away all unpleasant sensations. Upon reaching the immobilized mage, I knocked him down on the grass with a swift kick of the boot heel. The lizard was already sprouting several arrows courtesy of Rexar, his health bar down one quarter. A knocked-down enemy suffered critical damage from every attack, and the enemy was quickly running out of casters.
If memory served me right, a PvP mirror boss was a group of NPCs with the exact same skills and talents as the players. They didn't aggro on tanks, utilized classic builds and followed standard tactics. The enemy squad we were up against featured the exact class breakdown as ours. Two mages to mirror Luffy and myself, and so on. Only it took a single hit for me to snuff out the counterpart. In fairness, I wasn't exactly a proper mage, and the difference in gear and levels was significant. All these thoughts flashed through my mind as I slid my sword out of the writhing lizard's bloodied shoulder. I turned to face the hunter and tried to raise my shield, but didn't quite make it as the third arrow smacked into my shoulder. Suddenly, the ground and the sky switched places—it was as if some unseen force had spun me around no less than ten times, then shoved me hard in the back. It took me about five seconds to get my bearings, and I tried to assess the situation. Mopsy was hanging on the enemy hunter as Bonbon hounded him with sweeping strikes of his massive two-hander, and my sister was healing dutifully off to the side. Just then, the enemy rogue materialized at my back, and executed a sweeping undercut, sending me flying back down on the ground. A combo of strikes followed, both of them crits. My health bar dove into the yellow, but then another heal washed away the pain at once. I sprung to my feet, covering myself with the shield, and tried to get at the Darkaanese dancing masterfully before me. The rogue dodged two of my swings with no visible effort, then slipped back into invis. Bastard!
"He dispelled fear! How?!" the shock in Ellanca's voice was mixed with anger.
"They've got special rings, all of them! Focus fire the priest!"
I didn't give a hoot who had dispelled what, or about any special jewelry. No, I was wholly focused on the asshole that had vanished from sight. With Donut's words still ringing in my ears, I turned this way and that, trying to take stock of the situation, when a warrior Charged into my side—the same one who had been attacking Bonbon seconds prior. The three-second stun felt as if someone had rammed their fist into my nose; the next moment, a powerful blow of the two-handed sword struck me right in the collarbone. Materializing next to me yet again, the rogue threw a shuriken to extend my incapacitated state... and that proved to be the straw the broke the camel's back. Bastards! A dark tsunami of seething fury swept away the floodgates of normalcy. I burned with hatred for everything around me: this dungeon, these slippery scumbags with all the trouble they brought, but more than anything else, I hated myself. For being such a bloody fool. My mind was suddenly clear of all the garbage, all the useless calculations and assessments. Infernal Rage! You fool! It removes all crowd control—you should have popped it right after getting hit with the hunter's disorienting arrow! With the stun removed, I caught the two-handed coming down on me with my shield. The tip of Ruination struck the cuirass and slid into the warrior's chest cavity like a hot knife through butter. Crit! Freeing the blade with a jerk, I spun around toward the rogue. Just then, a thunderous roar went up over the platform, and a gray debuff icon appeared over the assassin's head. A pair of arrows plunged into him, spinning his body around, and the Fireball that followed put an end to the skirmish.
Seeing that no more enemies were around, I changed back, and waited for the rage drumming in my temples to abate. After several deep breaths, I slid my weapon back into its scabbard. It was enough that everyone understood that I wasn't quite right in the head these days—I didn't need to demonstrate my rage without cause. I didn't want to.
"That was kinda fun," Bonbon chuckled, leaning over a Darkaanese corpse. "And fast. I didn't even have time to feel scared."
"Oh, like you're the fearful type," Alyona smiled, stepping over a severed hand as she headed my way.
Truly, Arkon had done quite a number on all of us. Were any of us to stumble upon such a picturesque scene back on Earth—corpses and severed limbs lying in pools of blood—all but the biggest sociopaths among us would need a significant dose of firewater to calm the nerves. Or, possibly, months of PTSD counseling. And yet, look at us now—not batting an eyelash, neither men nor women...
"You OK?" my sister looked at me with some concern.
I felt like laughing out loud, realizing that she was probably just thinking the same things as me, having just seen her big bro engaging in ultra-violence without a care in the world. Especially given the terrifying corporeal form I would adopt in combat—thank Hart there wasn't a mirror around for me to scare myself silly...
"I'm good," with a wink to my sister, I reached for a pipe. "You don't need to worry about me going on a month-long binge, if that's what you're worried about."
"Too bad!" Donut sighed with lament in response. "I wouldn't refuse a month-long binge right about now. On the beach with some barbecue and a mountain of six-packs. Reminds me of my younger days..."
"Round tables around trees, perpetual hangovers, very particular—and peculiar—hallucinations," Masyanya interjected, counting with her fingers.
"You know the dryad was really there, don't you?" Bonbon said, frowning.
"One was, sure," the huntress agreed. "But how many did you see?"
"Enough!" Max cut them off, looting the slain rogue. Then, wiping his bloodied hand on a rag, he gestured at the columns sticking out of the ground. "There's our finish line. Once we return the temple to Kirana's rule, we'll be able to catch our collective breath. Don't count on a month-long binge, but if anybody wants a mini vacation of sorts, you can head to to the Wild Wood. And from there we'll get you back to Erantia by portals." He looked around at his companions, a teasing twinkle in his eye. "Krian and I had already discussed the matter. But if any one of you
A silence ensued following his words, so absolute that you could literally hear crickets. It lasted for a good ten seconds before Masyanya spoke up.
"With respect to the Wild Wood, you're probably right. There's little we can to be useful to level 300 knights and mages," the young woman said quietly. "As for the rest... Have you forgotten that night by the lake outside Talyan? When we had all vowed to stick together to the bitter end?"
"She's right," Luffy echoed in support. "Adventures aside, we're free to decide our own path. So don't bring it up again, Max. It's offensive, and we've done nothing to merit such treatment."
"But... I was just thinking... Uh..." my friend smiled guiltily, then shook his head. "All right, no more talk of this, I promise. Let the adventure continue!"
"Hear hear!" Donut sounded off, a gaze of utter admiration fixed on his girlfriend. Then he turned, nodded at the flat stone, and started toward the columns standing amid the grass.
"Hello! We've got a rare paladin stick in here!" Bonbon squared his back, demonstrating a mithril club with a chained spiked ball. "Where do you want it?"
"Keep it," Luffy shrugged, skirting the warrior as he followed everyone else.
"I will keep it!" Bonbon took a few test swings, furrowing his brows belligerently. "I've had it with the dark side! From here on, I shall fight for the light! You may call me Sir Lancelot of the Lake!"
"We've got a knight already, and we don't need any more," Rexar sniffed. "Come now, Lancelot..."
"Sir Lancelot," Bonbon corrected him at once.
"Yeah, yeah," the ranger nodded. "And you call me Captain Jack Sparrow..."
"Shall we?" Alyona touched me on the shoulder, motioning toward a distancing Donut. "These two can stand around and argue over all sorts of nonsense for ages."
I shrugged, smiled, and followed after my sister.
Up close, the wooden columns protruding from t
he ground resembled old telegraph poles, the kind that still abounded many a backwater Russian town. Now, why would that association float up in my head? Was it the feeling of abandonment that they evoked? Columns didn't typically grow from the ground, but the temple's foundation appeared to have been laid exactly so, mirroring elven architectural style since times immemorial. The wood had grown dark with time, but the surface was smooth as metal, without a single visible crack. And indeed, this type of wood could rival any metal, and was likely bolstered by magic to boot. And yet, Kirana's temple had been destroyed by a single blow—wooden logs as thick as the arm span of five grown men, broken like a bundle of matches. Siruat Heath—the place where the Ancients had been stopped three millennia ago—was a little over two miles northwest of here, so I had an inkling whose handiwork this was. Still, that didn't explain what had happened to the rest of the temple, nor why neither Kirana nor any other survivor of that momentous battle could remember the temple's location. Did we really possess the only surviving copy of the map? That just seemed too improbable in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, this was a proper quest, so why the heck not? The other possibilities were that the goddess had simply forgotten, or it was principally important for one of her adherents to find her sanctuary. After all, Max could have learned of its location from Goherym, but hadn't for some reason, and ended up taking the roundabout way to the destination. Not that any one of us should regret it now. As for the altar—a flat boulder shaped like a parallelepiped—it was protruding from the ground at a spot where, presumably, the back wall of the temple once stood. The ground in the area formed by the columns wasn't covered with grass, but with soft jade-green moss.
"That guy... he ordered an attack in a language we understand," Luffy gestured to the entrance, then turned a quizzical gaze at Donut. "How is that? We couldn't understand what the lizards were saying."
"Beats me," the rogue shrugged, examining carefully one of the support columns. "I'm more interested to know which hole the boss will be crawling out of."
"Maybe there won't be a boss?" Max turned to Donut. "Maybe we'll just lay the Tear on it, and—"
"Do you honestly believe that?" the rogue sighed. "Let's wait for Rexar and Bonbon. Don't enter the circle alone."
"Should we approach from that side?" Ellanca pointed at the altar with the tip of her staff. "Max will place the Tear on top, and if anything does crawl out, we'll hold out until the goddess arrives?"
"Won't work," Donut shook his head. "The altar will be inactive for as long as the boss is alive, so by approaching from that side we lost maneuverability. Having to fight around a big-ass brick isn't my idea of sound strategy. Besides, I'd wager that the moment the boss appears, walls will materialize to box us in."
"Don't let Kirana hear you call her altar a 'big-ass brick,'" Luffy sniffed. "Or she'll turn you into a boar. You'll be prancing and oinking. Then again," he gave the scrawny rogue a dubious once-over, "you probably wouldn't make a good boar. A spring pig, maybe..."
"Keep talking and I'll tell Tasha how you were ogling those chicks," Donut parried without hesitation. Then you'll be the one prancing and oinking. And long before the goddess turns me to keep you company."
"What chicks?!" the mage objected indignantly. "There were no chicks!"
"You think she'll start an investigation?" Donut chortled, and was about to add something when Bonbon and Rexar walked up to them, and the rogue's gaze became serious. "All right, enough of this foolery. Buffs are ticking. Krian, Bonbon—you two keep fifteen feet ahead. Everybody else, stay back and rotate your heads seven hundred twenty degrees at all times. Krian tanks the boss, Bonbon covers him. If there are adds, Max and Mopsy off-tank. Focus fire the target at all times. Let's roll!"
Putting the pipe away, I drew my sword, raised my shield just a bit, and entered onto the temple's territory. All was quiet. The mossy carpet felt springy under my soles. The columns that once supported the sanctuary devastated by the Ancient Gods were still there, but there was no boss in sight. Could this really be so easy for once? I sidestepped to the right, and stopped thirty feet from the altar. Keeping one eye on the structure, I turned and looked at the rest of the guys standing perfectly still behind me in a half-circle, their poses deceptively relaxed. They appeared to be just as surprised as I was.
"What now?" I asked Donut, gesturing toward the altar. "Just keep going?"
"I've got a lousy feeling about this," the rogue sighed, then shook his head. "But since—"
Just then there was a loud clapping noise, a pocket of hot and ashy air gusted into my face, and the runes drawn upon the altar blazed a cerulean blue. A sharp pain shot through my entire body as reality around me seemed to blink into...
Chapter 5
"Oh, bloody hell!" I growled as soon as I realized what had happened.
My surroundings had changed. I was standing on stone slabs of a huge space immersed in twilight. Behind me was a closed gated archway. Darkness veiled whatever lay ahead, undisturbed by the scant light of torches mounted on cracked stone walls. There was no ceiling; instead, the top of walls was ringed by a high metal grid, beyond which I could see rows of squat wooden benches... An arena! One of two hundred possible variations thereof! But why was I alone? Or had everyone been cast into their own mini dungeon? There weren't any opponents in sight, not just yet. I raised my shield, peering into the darkness, and proceeded to quickly review my skills. For control I had Morph, Silence, Aura of Horror and Earth Shackles. To break control, I had only Jump and Infernal Rage. And Step through Darkness, of course, though it shared a cooldown with Jump. Morph was no good—too long a cast and thus inefficient in combat. I'd only waste precious seconds on it. In contrast, Silence had a one-minute cooldown, huge range, a ten-second duration, and you couldn't break it with a Jump. Shackles had a forty-yard range and a thirty-second cooldown; Aura, fifty yards and five minutes, accordingly. Both Jump and Step had a twenty-five second cooldown. While under the effect of Infernal Rage, I was immune to all control spells for half a minute, but the cooldown was long at five minutes, and I would sooner use it to maximize crits. What else? Dispersion! I doubted that anyone would attack me with AoE spells, but twenty five percent absorption of all directed damage certainly wouldn't hurt. And why did I just now remember it? Idiot! Oh well, better late than never. I probably shouldn't even sweat it. In this dungeon, my opponent shouldn't be above level 200, which meant one shot should put them away. But what if there were several... No more than a few dozen seconds had passed as these thoughts all flashed through my mind, and then he appeared...
"Mother..."
Aura of Horror was useless here—it wouldn't break through ninety five percent mental resistance.
The darkness fifty yards in front of me parted, and out of it stepped forth... a demon. Level 250, one-and-a-half-foot-long horns, purple armor, sword, shield, combat form. The bars above the head—hidden. All but the name... Krian, Prince of Craedia. Why hello there, handsome! Donut had referred to the first boss as a "mirror," so was this a continuation of that story? Hart! Did I really look like that horned simian? And why brown? Had the System run out of colors? Or had it failed to copy my colors? Not that color mattered much here.
There's an old saying that you cannot defeat yourself, but I call bullcrap on that. When you're struggling to drop a bad habit, sure, that applies, but in this particular situation, it's the luck of the draw. This ugly bastard wasn't me! He may have the same set of skills as me, the same equipment, the same amount of HP, mana and energy, and controlled by a PvP System that was probably much smarter than me, and yet... Let's see how tough of an opponent I am.
My twin, in the meantime, appeared to have surmised the situation. Sword pointed slightly to the side, he darted toward me in total silence. As he drew to within forty yards, he was hit with Earth Shackles, followed by Silence. The demon's body jerked, his arms flailing comically as he nearly lost his balance. Of course, were this to happen in the real world, the momentum would h
ave left both his legs badly broken.
"Eat shit, asshole!" I grinned, Jumping to the right wall to increase the gap between us.
Ten seconds—a gamble, certainly, but if it worked... Yes! My twin's eyes flashed crimson as his body grew in size. Having dispelled my debuffs with Infernal Rage, he roared something unintelligible, and closed in on me with a Jump. Now it was my turn to rush into Shackles, though the Silence that followed was extra in my case, seeing as my Jump was already on a minute-long long cooldown. And seven seconds of Rage wasted, which was the whole point, I thought, peering into the crimson eyes of the foe rushing me.
The impact of sword meeting shield caused the wall-mounted torches to jump. Ice Blade, block a counter with a shield, Tongue of Flame... My feet shackled, I could barely turn, let alone move, and the third lunge of my twin, just as he side-stepped to the left, struck me right in the shoulder, taking off nearly half my life in an instant. A fierce frost gripped my body—it felt like being dropped from a warm home into a sub-zero tundra. The bastard's Freeze had procced! Infernal Rage! Dispersion! The debuffs came off, but I still couldn't even break a healing potion on my belt. Neither could I reach my opponent—with the demon spinning before me like a top, my blade just couldn't seem to penetrate his defenses. And if it weren't for the wall at my back, the battle likely would have long been over. Blocking yet another of my strikes with a shield, my twin countered with a lightning-quick parry, the tip of his blade sinking into my bicep. Bastard! My vision swimming in a sea of red, I felt the rage begin to well up in me, rising and pumping in my temples like a great bell! Just then, the cooldown on Earth Shackles wore off.
