by G. Akella
"It pays to be a psycho sometimes," Bonbon winked at the girl, then shot a mocking glance at the mage. "Well, how about it? Need anything I might find under its tail?"
They progressed much quicker from then on. Bonbon would Charge into the rightmost amphibian and strike the ground in some clever way to stun the whole pack for a second, then quickly moved sideways and maintained a position when his target would somehow remain sandwiched between him and the two remaining mobs. Esthie would cast a healing spell on him after a few seconds, while Max, Luffy and Leeque poured all the damage they could muster into the mobs. Max would make Charge almost right after Bonbon, and copy all his movements to evade friendly fire. A pack only took them a minute to vanquish now, and another five minutes processing the corpses.
As a result, they approached the first boss mere two hours later, having fully completed the first amphibian heart collection quest and leaving sixty nine mutilated toad corpses behind them. Correspondingly, the group was sixty nine hides richer, having also obtained an enormous amount of alchemical ingredients and mage boots of the unusual class, which Luffy instantly donned, his spirits rising visibly. There were no nasty surprises of any sort like patrols appearing from out of nowhere, or elaborate traps. The dungeon was designed for beginners, after all, so they just moved from one pack to another, gathering the mushrooms from the walls along the way.
They all got their sixteenth level after the fortieth toad or so (with the exception of Bonbon), and Max called for a ten minute break so that they could distribute their stat points and rest a little.
They found the first boss in a round cavern some fifty feet across—a bull-sized brown toad by the name of Qewarr, level 17, with 24,000 health points. The monster had horns that looked like ivory, protruding five feet or so from its forehead. Qewarr's hide was dark blue, with an orange spot on its chest.
"I wonder what kind of mosquitoes it feeds on in here," chortled Bonbon as he sized up the boss, who was perfectly still. "Oh, but of course! Here we have five mosquitoes who came of their own volition. Hey, sweet cheeks, dinner is served!" he shouted at the blue toad.
At that very moment, the boss yawned loudly, baring a row of needle-sharp teeth, and then stared in front of itself again, silent.
"He heard you," Luffy patted the tank on the shoulder. "See? He's already waiting."
"Yeah, and he looks like he's missed us, too," Bonbon nodded and turned toward Max. "So, what are we doing?"
"The guys told us that each time it loses thirty three percent of its HP, its aggro resets and it lashes out with its tongue at a random target," Leeque explained. "We're lucky if it chooses the tank; less so if it goes for someone else."
"The worst-case scenario is if it chooses Esthie," Max shook his head. "So, this is what we'll do. Once its HP drops to sixteen thousand or so, the three of you approach and get within fifteen feet of it. You," he pointed at Esthera, "are to remain directly behind Leek's back. No one's canceled the laws of physics yet, so he's unlikely to be able to hit you in that case. As soon as the toad chooses its target and leaps, we instantly stop our damage. Whoever it chooses drinks a healing potion—unless it's Bonbon, of course. And no healing until the tank draws its attention again. Got it?"
"Yes," Esthera nodded.
"So, if everything's clear to everyone, let's go!"
The plan went off without a hitch. The boss' blows barely dealt five percent damage to Bonbon as he blocked them with his shield, and the healing was timely. When the boss' health was at seventy percent, Max yelled, "Fall in!" Right at that moment, the enormous toad turned toward him and opened its mouth. The warrior felt as though a sticky sledgehammer hit him in the chest. The very next second, the boss knocked him off his feet and chomped down on his right arm. Max's breath caught as he glimpsed his health bar drop by one third, and a message in the system log informed that his toughness rose to five percent. Fortunately, the nightmare ended shortly—Bonbon instantly switched the boss' attention back to himself with Provoke, pulling it off a supine Max. The monster dealt him one last blow with its hind legs, but Esthie's healing instantly took all the pain away, and the battle continued.
When the boss' HP fell to thirty three percent, the same happened to Leeque, who was shielding Esthera. Since he stood a bit further from Bonbon than Max had previously, the monster managed to bite the ranger twice, taking off about one half of his HP before the tank could re-engage. Pain made Leeque faint, and he spent about half a minute lying on the ground, even though Esthie had managed to restore his health to the maximum in just a few seconds.
But all is well that ends well. With a dying roar, Qewarr fell to the cave's slippery floor. Bonbon, having leveled up to twenty, took his helmet off, sat down on the floor next to the slain beast, breathing heavily, fished out the bottle he had received as a present, and took a few long tugs. Luffy cursed, Max reached for a cigarette, and Esthie ran to her boyfriend and hugged him tight by the neck.
"All right, kids, congratulations! That was a good start!" the bald warrior chuckled as he put the bottle back into his bag. "Popped our cherry, as it were. This was our first boss, after all."
"Never realized you were a pervert to boot," Luffy snorted. "To lose one's virginity with a blue toad... No one would ever believe us."
"What you need is a vivid description and good attention to sensual details. They will surely believe you then," grunted Bonbon, and lit a cigarette, looking satisfied. "Hey, Max, why don't you take a look what's inside that thing, while our two lovebirds are having a private moment," he nodded toward the hugging Dutch couple. "They may take all night, and I can't help my curiosity."
Max approached the dead boss and placed his hand on the toad's slimy skin. There was a chiming sound, and everyone's purse became fuller by seven silver pieces.
"Leeque," the warrior called the ranger. "Catch."
The young man caught a pair of unusual quality chainmail boots. Giving them a quick inspection, he smiled.
"Thanks."
"There's another pair of boots here. They look like they might fit me," Max shrugged. "Ten to strength, seven to constitution. Would you mind if I took them, Bonbon?"
"Go ahead," the tank waved his hand. "Mine are similar, albeit constitution only. But there's something else that I find outrageous!" he said, blowing out the smoke. "This isn't a dungeon—it's a freaking shoe store!"
"Is there nothing else there?" asked the mage.
"A bunch of viscera for you alchemists. And this thing here," Max demonstrated a small blue bead in the palm of his hand to everyone, then took a closer look and smiled. "Dance, Esthie!"
The girl looked at him in surprise.
"Why should I dance?"
"That's what they say in our parts when they give someone something important," Max smiled.
"What's that?" the priestess approached and took a closer look at the bead in Max's hand. "Oh my," she placed her hands over her mouth in excitement, raising her eyes at Max. "But it's—"
"Yup, a pearl from a relief in Loaetia's temple," the warrior winked as he gave her the item. "Give it to the priests in exchange for a rare level twenty item."
"Boots, I wager," Bonbon grunted.
"Aren't you a sharp cookie," Max grinned back. Then he turned to Luffy and Leeque. "Right, grab the viscera, and let Bonbon skin the thing. We'll take a ten minute break then, and move on."
"Guys, but I really feel awkward about this," muttered the red-haired priestess, clutching the pearl in her hand. "You get nothing, and I get a rare item."
"I'll tell you what feels awkward—putting on your pants over your head," Bonbon countered instantly. "And doing that thing on the ceiling—ask your boyfriend what exactly. That's your goddess' pearl, isn't it? Well, you take care of it, then," he cracked a good-natured smile.
"Thanks," the girl placed the pearl in her inventory, and started to whirl around the cave in an elaborate dance, eliciting smiles from the male members of the group. "How long do I have to dance?" she asked,
laughing out loud.
"You're really good at it," Luffy nodded to her. "So the longer, the better."
One of the walls had crumbled after the boss' death, opening a passage to a staircase leading down, which, in turn, brought them to another corridor that was just as long, the difference being that there were no more roots sticking out of the walls, which were now made of brown sandstone. The lighting was provided by the copious amounts of mold growing on the walls.
"Now why did none of us learn mining?" Luffy gestured at the copper vein that ran through one of the walls, and gave Max an accusatory look.
"Must be because none of us had the time for it yet," he shrugged, peering deep into the passage where more mob packs awaited the party.
If described in plain terms, mobs known as spiky rats resembled hedgehogs the most. At level 17, they had a bit more HP than the toads from upstairs, so Max decided that the group should stick to the same tactic as before.
"And so we find ourselves in Hedgehog Kingdom," announced Bonbon at once. Pulling an enormous transparent slug off the wall, he offered it to Esthera.
The priestess screamed and hid behind Leek's back, and the bald man made a disappointed gesture.
"I thought you Dutch folk would be more open-minded about food. Your neighbors the French are no strangers to eating frogs and snails—perhaps a change from your mushroom diet would do you good?"
"Are you ever going to let up?" Max shook his head with a smile.
"Like something is wrong with me?" the warrior shrugged and showed the twitching slug to Max. "Look how plump it is. I always offer the best to the ladies first. It's called being a gentleman."
"Then be a gentleman and eat it yourself!" squeaked the priestess from behind the ranger's back.
"Just you watch me," Bonbon popped the slug into his mouth and started to chew on it slowly, while the others eyed him with bewilderment.
The bald warrior calmly finished chewing, took a swig from the bottle, clapped the dust from his hands, and shrugged.
"Tastes like shrimp," he snorted. "Pity we haven't got any beer, or we could party here for a while. Right on, captain, lead on—we've got us some hedgehogs to kill."
"You're full of surprises," Max chuckled. "Why don't you warn us in advance? It would be easier for us all if we knew what to expect."
"You can eat everything that moves in this game," said Bonbon, placing the helmet back on his head. "Unless, of course, it's poisonous or dead. So you can't die of hunger here."
"All right, enough already. We stick to the same tactics." Max pointed at the nearest rat pack. "Let's assume our positions."
Spiky rats did not present any problems. The only unpleasant thing about fighting them was that they could occasionally deal damage over a distance. However, their needles didn't hit for more than a couple percent of the players' HP, so it took about an hour and a half for the party to make it to the second boss, with the unsophisticated nickname of Needlebelly. There were as many hedgehogs on this level as there had been frogs on the previous one. Everybody completed the second quest, having gathered ten tails each, but they were completely out of luck loot-wise. The three ordinary items that they got—cloth gauntlets, chainmail boots, and a leather helmet—would not fetch much at any auction. Two silver coins tops, according to Leeque. They did, however, manage to gather a fair amount of alchemical reagents and spiky hides. Max could only guess at who might need them and for what purpose, but Bonbon diligently skinned each and every rat, and the warrior decided to leave him to it.
The second boss was found in a square room with walls of gray stone lit by four magical lanterns placed in every corner. The three triangular stone columns bearing indecipherable hieroglyphics formed a regular triangle and looked as apropos here as a packet of pasta on a bookstore counter. There was water dripping somewhere in the distance, and the air was filled with the same smell of rot and mildew. Needlebelly stood motionless in the center of the room, and only its sides, rising and falling as it breathed, and the accompanying rattle of the needles, gave any notion that they were looking at a living creature and not a stone effigy. It shouldn't stay alive for too long, thought Max to himself. The beast was level 18 and had 25,000 hit points—just a little bit more than the previous boss. He should go down in five minutes if there are no surprises. Up to level 30 inclusively, no bosses in the game had any resistances, and physical damage absorption was set at ten percent for each. The warrior remembered as much from the guidebooks he had read.
"A hedgehog looks neat—three... uh, heads, that is, and seven feet," Bonbon recollected the old chestnut when he saw Needlebelly.
"Why 'three heads' when I only see one?" asked a fascinated Leeque.
"It's a Russian saying," chortled the bald warrior. "And the original version does not refer to heads. However, being a well-bred freaking gentleman that I am, I cannot demonstrate the true magnitude of my Slavic character with young ladies present."
"What exactly is he talking about?" asked Esthera, looking at Max. "We are no connoisseurs of your folklore, but he totally lost us there. Why seven feet? And what about those heads?"
"Try not to pay any attention to his sayings," advised Max, and then turned to Leeque. "What are we supposed to expect of this beastie?"
"He will spin every minute, throwing needles all around. These columns are for hiding behind them when that happens. That's about the size of it."
"All right," Max nodded. "Then you, Esthera, and Luffy stay behind your columns all the time. Bonbon, when Needlebelly starts spinning, use that shield wall of yours, or whatever it was that you have just learned."
"Stalwart Defense," explained the bald warrior.
"That's it. As for me, I'll run behind the closest column. One last thing," he pointed to a deep indentation in the floor. Keep him right there. That way, the healing spells will reach you even if Esthie remains behind a column."
The battle against Needlebelly wasn't memorable in any way, except for the needle that pierced Max's cheek. The vulnerable party members hid behind columns just in time, Bonbon used his defense skill, and Max kept track of time and tried to keep close. He hid along with the others without waiting to get hit by the boss' AOE. Seven minutes later, the boss was dead, everybody but the tank leveled up, and the stone wall creaked open to reveal another passage. Bonbon plopped down on the ground in an already familiar movement, his armor creaking, and reached for the bottle in his bag in a movement just as familiar.
"Don't you get too drunk too early," Max shook his head at the tank, then touched Needlebelly's carcass with his hand.
The overgrown porcupine yielded somewhat better loot than the previous boss. Each party member received eight silver pieces, Esthie got a pretty decent unusual quality cloak, and there were similar trousers for Luffy. The boss also dropped the alchemical recipe of a lesser strength potion, and, since Esthie and Leeque already knew the recipe, the mage ended up receiving that as well.
"How are you going to sort through this bunch of offal later, I wonder?" Bonbon grunted as he handed Esthera gruesome-looking brownish lumps of meat. "This stuff is only good for making bologna. But I don't think even dogs would eat that kind of bologna."
"Oh, yeah, like dogs would eat slugs," the priestess was quick with the comeback.
"Slugs are a delicacy. Shows what you know about fine dining!" the bald warrior grinned in a good-natured way and rubbed his stomach, his armor making a clangor. "I could eat another dozen or two, but I don't see any around."
"Are you ever going to be full?" Luffy grumbled, moving toward the opened passage.
Max waved to the others and followed the mage.
The giant rats whose tails they needed for the third quest turned out to be regular oversized rats, only slightly bigger than the ones Max and Luffy had hunted in the Sunlit Forest. They were level 19, but that didn't prevent the party from easily clearing the long stone-walled corridor. The haul was the same: the hides flayed by Bonbon, a few items of ordinary quality,
and even more alchemical ingredients. By the time they reached the end of the corridor, Bonbon had so much blood smeared all over him that he looked like he had taken a bath in it. The bald warrior kept singing obscene songs of some sort as he fought and skinned rats, and looked quite terrifying—not unlike a character from an old horror film.
Max was likewise covered in blood. After trying once to scrub his armor clean in a spring during one of the breaks they had taken, he quickly gave up on the idea as pointless. It helped that Leeque had told him that his gear would be cleaned automatically in six or eight hours.
An enormous gray rat lay upon a strange dais near the far wall of the hall they wound up in after vanquishing the last pack of giant rats. Kryass, the final boss of Lake Cave, was level 20 and had 35,000 hit points. He also looked like a Dachshund for some reason—a rather sizable doggie some ten feet long. The creature's dais stood near the wall and had the shape of a rectangular block fifty feet long and seven feet high. There were cracked stone stairs leading to a landing at the top from either side. The boss lounged upon it, looking perfectly comfortable.
"That's some rat," said Esthera in a low voice, looking around the hall that was lit by magic lanterns. "Fancy it sticking its snout into your fridge..."
"Why would it even open the fridge?" asked a surprised Bonbon. "I say it would devour the fridge whole, along with all your yogurts."
"I don't eat yogurts," the girl smiled.
"Pardon me, ma'am, I completely forgot about your mushroom diet," the bald warrior chortled. "But this ferret would probably gobble up all your mushrooms, too, given half a chance."
"Silence, now," Max stopped Bonbon from elaborating further on the subject, and looked at Leeque inquisitively. "What should we expect from this oversized rodent?"
"We're best off leaving this one alone altogether," the ranger shook his head grimly. "His bites hurt a lot, and it strikes with its tail, too. You cannot block a tail strike, and it's nearly impossible to dodge. A bite accompanied by a tail strike take nearly a quarter off a tank's HP. The guys were here before the patch, when real pain was capped at ten percent. Back then you hardly felt anything until your HP dropped by about seventy percent, but now... We can exit the dungeon over there," Leeque pointed at the far corner of the hall. There was a huge crack that parted the stone wall there, from the ceiling to the floor.
