by A. J. Markam
I stared.
Could it be…?
I reached over and touched my toe lightly on a tile marked ‘Y,’ one of the letters not in Mesatrinoxubic’s name.
The tile fell away. I yanked my foot back without losing my balance.
Sand began to cascade down through the hole.
That’s it! That’s the trick!
“Everybody – start knocking out the bad tiles with one foot, but don’t fall through!” I shouted.
“What?” Hodin asked.
“Just do it! Step on them lightly with one foot!”
My teammates began knocking out tiles one by one, and the sand began flowing into the pit below. I knew we were covering Jaxos, but he was already dead.
More importantly, we were covering up all those stakes and cobras, and giving us time to kill Mesatrinoxubic before the sand swallowed us whole.
Except, before we could even get her down to 50% hit points, the bitch walked out again and the door slammed shut behind her.
“SHIT!”
“What do we do now?!” Hodin yelled.
I looked down at the pit below us. It was half-filled with sand, and all the spikes were long buried.
Despite the cleverness of knocking out all the bad tiles, all we had done was extend our lives by a few minutes until the rest of the chamber filled up with sand, too.
Unless…
Unless the answer is down THERE somewhere.
I grabbed one of the torches off the wall and jumped down into the pit.
“What are you doing?!” the elf shrieked.
I fell fifteen feet, hit the rapidly growing sand dune, and used the dim light of the torch to look around.
Nothing on that wall – nothing there –
There.
An open doorway yawned in the stone wall ten feet above my head.
In less than a minute, the sand would be high enough for me to walk right into it.
“EVERYONE, DOWN HERE!” I yelled. “I FOUND THE WAY OUT!”
Seconds later everyone jumped down into the pit behind me. As soon as they saw the doorway, they roared with glee.
Ten seconds later the sand was high enough that we could reach the bottom of the door with our hands. I boosted the gnome and Stig up; Meera just flapped her way in. Fifteen seconds later the elf, Hodin, and I scurried up the dune into the doorway.
As soon as we were all up on the edge, the sand stopped pouring and a tomblike quiet descended.
“Is that it?” Hodin whispered. “Isn’t she going to come after us?”
I lifted my torch and peered further into the darkness. There was a spiral stone staircase just ten feet away. “Only one way to find out.”
We ran up the steps as fast as we could, guided by hints of daylight at the top.
Seconds later we burst out into the sunshine on the opposite side of the pyramid.
We’d survived.
“That’s it?! We don’t have to kill her?” Hodin exclaimed.
“I guess not,” I said. “Maybe it’s possible, but you can also just escape. Like we did with the Sarlacc pit.”
“But what about Jaxos?” the elf asked. “How the hell is he going to get back to us? We’re toast without a healer!”
“I’m glad I’m appreciated,” the Druid said as he appeared around the side of the pyramid, stumbling across its sloped surface.
“What the hell! How’d you get through?!”
“When I got to the pyramid door, there was a big stone slab locking me out – but the force field wasn’t there anymore, so I crawled over the side of the pyramid. How did you guys get out?”
After a quick explanation, we looked around at the empty courtyard we found ourselves in. The only thing left in the dungeon was a massive ziggurat, a tiered building that looked like a pyramid but was made of rectangular blocks instead of a smooth, sloping surface. A giant stone staircase stretched up one side, and a temple with columns sat at the very top.
Something was walking out of it.
It was a mummy-like figure with its torso and limbs wrapped in bandages – except that its head was bare, exposing a grey-skinned, red-eyed face. It wore a purple cape and a golden ceremonial headdress. It also looked powerfully built under its rags: broad shoulders, big chest, massive thighs and biceps.
“That is one jacked mummy,” the gnome noted.
“Looks a hell of a lot like Mumm-ra on steroids, doesn’t it?” Hodin remarked.
“+1 for the Thundercats reference,” I said.
“Think he’s going to be a pushover or a pain in the ass?” the Druid asked.
It was a truism that final bosses in dungeons were never the toughest. Usually one of the mini-bosses was far more difficult, and defeating the last boss was a matter of wearing him down without dying.
However, it was a truism in the same way that ‘never go left’ was a truism. Sometimes the game developers liked to subvert it just to mess with you.
On the other hand, unless we wiped more than twice, it would be harder to top Mesa-whatever-her-name-was for difficulty.
“WHO DARES DISTURB THE SLEEP OF THAROS?” the mummy roared as it descended the stone stairway.
“Is that a blatant rip-off of ‘Thanos’ or just an unconsciously incompetent one?” the gnome asked.
“Somebody in the legal department must have brought up the similarity, so I’d go with blatant,” the elf said.
“YOU HAVE SURVIVED MY PRIESTS AND GUARDIANS, SO YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY POWERFUL – BUT YOU HAVE NEVER ENCOUNTERED ONE WITH THE MIGHT OF THAROS BEFORE!”
“Why didn’t they name him ‘Mummy-Ra’?” Hodin mused. “Or make it a chick and call her Mom-Ra?”
“Mom-Ra,” the gnome snickered to himself.
“Whoever owns Thundercats must have a better legal department,” the Druid suggested.
The elf rolled her eyes. “I hardly think Marvel Comics has second-rate lawyers.”
“Okay, whoever owns Thundercats must have a bored legal department,” the Druid amended.
“YOU HAVE WOKEN ME FROM MY TEMPLE… NOW PREPARE TO DIE!”
“Heads up, people – here he comes!” Hodin yelled.
The mummy didn’t bother walking down the rest of the steps – instead, it jumped from 50 feet up in the air.
When it hit the ground, a shockwave blasted through the air and knocked all of us to the ground.
“CHILL, BITCH!” Stig yelled as he leapt back up to his feet.
“That’s right – CHILL, bitch!” Hodin roared with laughter as he dashed in with his hammer.
The gnome went invisible with a whoosh and followed right behind him.
Meera flew fearlessly into battle, sword slashing through the air.
Meanwhile Stig, the elf, and I went to work.
I alternated hitting the mummy with Doomsday, Darkfire, and Soul Suck.
While I did some damage, Stig’s fireballs and the Fire Mage’s lava attacks were far more effective. The mummy’s bandages began to burn, and then his dried-out face caught fire.
“AAAAAGH!” he screamed in agony.
“Is that it?!” the Druid asked as he healed Hodin, who was taking massive damage from the mummy’s punches. “All we had to do was set him on fire?!”
“Don’t be fooled!” Hodin yelled as he threw the hammer right in Tharos’ face. “It’s probably just Stage One!”
End Bosses usually went through stages of attack. The first might be pure brute force, the second could be a magical attack, with the third being some form of transformation.
‘Mom-Ra’ didn’t disappoint. Or rather, I guess he did, since he stayed true to form.
The bandages burned up completely, along with the cape. The creature’s withered (but still ripped) body burned, too, turning into one giant, red-hot coal. Now he was a flaming demon with two bright pinpoints of light for eyes.
“YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR AFFRONT TO THAROS!” he roared, and began spewing firehose-like blasts of flame.
“Ow!” the elf yelled
as one slammed into her shoulder. I guess being a Fire Mage didn’t make her immune to fire’s effects – not when the attacks came from NPC monsters.
Stig started teleporting around the mummy, distracting him a bit.
“Careful, Stig!” I yelled as I pumped some more health back into Meera.
Our combined efforts yielded results, though. Nobody had died yet, and Tharos was down to 25% Health.
Then he upped his game a bit.
“I CALL UPON THE GODS OF DARKNESS FOR THEIR AID!”
Black clouds boiled above us. They began spinning in a funnel, and suddenly a tornado came roaring down from the sky. Sand blasted through the air, stinging my eyes and making it difficult to see.
‘Difficult to see’ is a relative term, though, considering what happened next.
The tornado enveloped the glowing coal of a monster. Suddenly he began to grow.
Fifteen feet tall… 20 feet tall… 30 feet tall…
In other words, very easy to see.
“Oh shit,” Hodin groaned.
By the time the tornado dispersed, the burning demon was 40 feet tall and loomed far above us.
“NOW FACE THE FULL MIGHT OF THAROS!” the monster roared, and began trying to stomp us.
The only thing was, his bigger size made him slower, so his attacks were easier to dodge. So: kind of scary at first, but not that impressive in the end.
Meera did an admirable job of flying around the monster’s head, sticking her sword in its face and then flying away. It might have been nothing more than an annoyance for the fiery colossus, but she was doing just as effective a job of drawing the boss’s aggro as Hodin was down on the ground.
We hammered away with more attacks until Tharos’ hit points dropped below 10,000. Then one of his feet turned dusty white, the way coals do in a barbecue grill when they finally burn out and die.
“This is it, people!” Hodin yelled. “Watch out!”
He threw his hammer at the monster’s leg, and the creature’s ankle shattered on impact.
“NOOOO!” the monster roared as it slowly tilted to one side, off-balance.
“Timberrrrrrr!” the gnome shouted gleefully.
The mummy began to fall, picking up speed –
WHAM!
He hit the ground and shattered into a million glittering embers that skittered across the sand.
‘20,000 XP’ floated up in the air.
“YAAAAY!” everybody in the group cheered.
Suddenly I was enveloped in golden light. Trumpets blasted.
I had reached Level 15.
YES!
No new magical abilities like Soul Suck or Darkbolt, but I’d gained something else:
One new demon, coming right up.
Before I could check it out, though, an aristocratic voice spoke from the top of the ziggurat. “You have defeated the mighty Tharos, and therefore are entitled to the plunder of the ages. Come forward and make your choice.”
We all looked up. A two-foot-tall lizard man dressed in the ceremonial robes of an ancient Egyptian priest was standing at the top of the stairs.
“Hot damn, let’s go see what we got,” Hodin said, rubbing his steel-plated gloves together.
We raced to the top of the steps. There were a lot of them.
“Damn, couldn’t they have made this bitch a little taller?” the gnome huffed and puffed sarcastically as he struggled up the steps, which were nearly as tall as he was.
I almost told Meera to give him a ride to the top, then remembered all his comments about her jugs – so I just let him hoof it along with the rest of us.
Serves you right, you little perv.
When we got to the top of the ziggurat, the lizard looked at us placidly. “Each of you must make a choice as to which reward you wish: treasure or wisdom?”
“Wisdom?” the Druid said in surprise. “What the hell kind of a reward is that?”
“Fuck wisdom, gimme treasure,” the gnome said greedily.
The lizard nodded and produced a golden knife out of the sleeve of its robe.
Blade of Tharos
110-130 Damage
+35 Agility
+40 Stamina
+25 Critical Strike
Worth: 2 gold
“Holy shit, not bad,” the gnome said gleefully.
He had cause to be happy. Rogues used two knives, one in each hand – so in the course of one dungeon, he’d upgraded both his weapons substantially.
The Druid and Hodin both chose treasure, and each received a bitchin’ reward: the Druid got a staff that gave him +50 Intellect, and Hodin scored a golden war axe with 350 Damage and a buttload of stats.
I hesitated when the lizard came to me. I wasn’t quite as contemptuous of ‘wisdom’ as my teammates. It might be something that could help me out in the future.
However, ‘wisdom’ wasn’t going to pay off my debts to a certain goblin mob boss, either.
“Treasure,” I decided. I would be grinding this dungeon enough over the days and weeks to come; I could choose Wisdom later.
The lizard handed over a ring. At first I was disappointed until I saw the stats.
Ring of Tharos
+60 Intellect
+40 Stamina
+20 Haste
Worth: 2 gold
Holy shit.
Between the ring and the necklace I’d gotten earlier, I’d almost doubled my Intellect and Stamina stats. Which meant I’d become much more powerful and harder to kill just from one dungeon run. Not to mention the extra Haste would make it a little bit faster to cast my spells.
I slipped on my newest acquisition and checked my stats just to be sure.
Level 15
Health 580
Mana 1910
Intellect 208
Stamina 169
Armor 43
Necklace of Ra’nath: +40 Intellect, +20 Stamina
Shoulders: +3
Cloak of the Northern Wastes: +6 Armor, +10 Intelligence, +15 Stamina
Shirt: +3
Vest: +5
Bracers: +3
Pants: +5
Belt: +4, +3 Intelligence
Boots of the Yeti: +10 Armor, +12 Intelligence, +20 Stamina
Gloves: +4
Rings: +4 Intelligence, +6 Critical Strike
Ring of Tharos: +60 Intellect, +40 Stamina, +20 Haste
Trinkets: +7 Critical Strike, +5 Haste
Scepter of the Servant:
+40 Intelligence
+20 Stamina
+10 Critical Strike
Critical Strike: 7.5%
Haste: 4.5%
Not bad, indeed.
The elf was the last to choose, and she stood there looking conflicted.
“What – are you seriously thinking of choosing ‘wisdom’?” the gnome asked.
“Shut up,” the elf said.
“But look at all the cool stuff!” the gnome protested, holding up his golden knife.
“I’m thinking.”
“Study long, study wrong,” the Druid teased her.
“Wisdom,” the elf said finally.
The gnome groaned.
The lizard priest nodded and gestured back towards the temple behind him. Beyond the columns, a shadowy passageway flickered with the dim light from a single torch.
“You and you alone may enter the Temple of Tharos. Take the Light of Knowledge and go and see the Oracle, and she shall bestow upon you her wisdom of the ages. But tell no one what you see or hear within.”
The elf nodded and walked towards the open doorway.
The gnome grunted in displeasure. “What kind of ‘her and her alone’ bullshit is this? There’s not even a door to hold you back. Screw this, I’m gettin’ some wisdom, too!”
He cloaked with a whoosh and ran across the top of the ziggurat, his footprints appearing in the thin layer of sand scattered across the stone floor. He passed the elf, rustling her robes, and made straight for the doorway –
TZAAAP!
&nbs
p; The gnome sparked with electricity, came out of cloaking, and got catapulted back through the air ten feet where he slammed back down on the roof of the ziggurat.
The entire group laughed at him.
“Didja get your wisdom, Brak?” the Druid taunted. “Was it ‘Don’t go places they tell you not to?’”
“Screw you guys,” the gnome said unhappily as he stumbled to his feet. “Ow…”
“See you soon,” the elf said. She passed effortlessly through the open doorway, took the single torch from the wall, and disappeared into the darkness.
I had to admit, I was pretty damn curious to know what she was going to find back there.
Although I wasn’t sure ‘wisdom’ was worth the two gold I could get reselling one of the lizard priest’s artifacts.
We waited around a couple of minutes, just chatting about the dungeon’s mini-bosses and admiring our haul, when the elf finally reappeared. She had a puzzled look on her face.
“So? What was it?” the gnome prodded.
“Speak of it to no one,” the priest instructed her again.
“You heard the lizard,” the elf said. “Can’t tell you, Shorty.”
“Aw, man,” the gnome grumbled, then whispered, “Tell me when we get out of here.”
“You may now depart in peace,” the lizard said, and gestured down at the courtyard, where ten feet of the sandstone walls melted away like an LSD trip. “May the gods bless you.”
We made our way down to the opening and stepped through to the other side of the wall, back out into the open desert. As soon as we did, the wall magically resealed behind us.
“Sweet,” Hodin said. “That was a pretty good dungeon.”
“Pretty good?” the gnome hooted, then pulled out both his flashy new knives. “Tell that to my leeeetle friends!”
“Leeeetle friends for a leeeetle man,” the elf said.
“Hey – what’d you see in there?” the gnome asked.
She shook her head. “You heard the lizard.”
“Aw, COME ON! What’s he gonna do, suck the info back out of your head?”
“Nope. You got your knife. You don’t get to hear my wisdom.”
“MAN – ”
Hodin turned to me and extended one steel-plated gauntlet. “Ian, it’s been a pleasure.”
