Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1

by Joshua W. Nelson

  “It’s fine Wayne, I’m always game to try new things,” Tim said.

  “Your funeral bro, and I don’t know how respawn works here,” Wayne answered.

  When we pulled the next two mobs, I told Wayne to get aggro on them again, but told Tim to try and Charm the one Wayne wasn’t primarily attacking. It was yellow to Tim, so I didn’t know if he would be able to land the spell.

  “Failed. Failed. Landed.” Tim replied.

  So now we knew the mob had a high resist, but that with enough time, Tim could likely get the mob under control. When it finally did break that Charm though, it was going to beat Tim’s ass something fierce. I made sure all heals were ready to save Tim when Wayne finally launched his attack.

  Ten percent. That’s how far Tim’s health fell before Wayne was able to get aggro. And that was with lots of heals. Tim went down to only 10 percent life left. And Tim was shooting daggers at me when it was all done. “You’re right Wayne. Alex can do experiments on himself from now on. That sucked.”

  I muttered something about “valuable information” and suggest we keep going. The rest agreed, as we weren’t here to fight mobs in the entry way.

  This dungeon was much like the sewers we had fought in before. A maze of corridors, but this time made to look like caves rather than sewers. And with the twists and turns, we were all lost, except for Dan.

  “If my calculations are correct, we should be turning the next corner and finding some kind of boss fight,” Dan said.

  And wouldn’t you know it, as we turned into the next hallway we found two more mobs and what looked like a large room behind them. Our team mates thought this was a lucky guess, but we all knew the amazement that was Dan’s weird brain. If only it could be used for good and not just crosswords.

  We cleared the last two mobs before the big room and our team mates gave out whoops of joy. Apparently they had leveled. We took a quick break so they could distribute the points they received. Every bit was going to be necessary for this fight. This still left the mobs yellow, but were likely only 3 levels vice 4 higher than they were now. Although that was likely to be different in the large room.

  More importantly, we had been lucky with our looting. Well, I had been lucky. The rock dwellers were dropping a significant amount of Silver, and more importantly, some armor. It was all metal based given they were rock, but it allowed Jennifer to deck out in a full set of Rusted armor minus one bracer, but this was an improvement for her. Gary, Tim, and Kaitlin couldn’t wear the metal based armor.

  I thought back to our previous boss fight in the sewers and expected some kind of AoE spell that was going to hit us from the boss. Everyone in my group had a minimum of 10 resistance against the elements, but I was figuring this was going to be an earth based attack given where we were. I told Jason to prep his Earth resistance spell.

  “Oh, I have one of those too!” Kaitlin said. “I get Disease and Poison at level 10, but I can’t go and get those spells right now obviously. But I got my Earth resistance earlier.”

  It appeared her spells were opposite to Jason’s in the order they were given, at least for resistances. Now I only hoped the two spells would stack. Sometimes in these games if you were casting a spell with the same effect, the two effects wouldn’t compound. In this case, I was hoping that with a Cleric and a Druid, two very different Classes, the spells would stack, or work simultaneously.

  “Let’s hold off casting those until after I get back from scouting the room. Otherwise the buffs could wear off. And Dan, no crosswords,” I said.

  “You always ruin all of my fun, Alex.”

  I moved out to the large room and scouted the area. True to form, the phrase stuck – “A dungeon, is a dungeon, is a dungeon.” There is only so much that you could do with a dungeon layout, and this had been the case in every game I had ever played. You had mazes, mobs, and bosses. I hoped in higher level dungeons things would get more interesting, but this was still a very low level encounter. It just so happened that my group had completed the one instance dungeon that Resurgence had to offer, so we had already seen a similar layout.

  And this was indeed looking just like the sewers, with regular Enraged Earth Dwellers and a Furious Earth Dweller who was yellow to me. I relayed this to the group, and returned to discuss our strategy. Unlike when there was only the four of us, we likely wouldn’t have to kite around any of the mobs. Jennifer was feeling better about her Tanking chances and suggested off-Tanking one of the regular Enraged mobs. That would leave Wayne to deal with the mini-boss and the other Enraged. We would kill Wayne’s Enraged first, then Jenny’s and then focus on the mini-boss. I felt better about Tim’s chances of Charming the Enraged, but I also saw what happened when the mob broke through the Charm and almost killed Tim. And we wouldn’t be able to save Tim and keep Wayne healed if that happened. Tim was disappointed, but admitted to the smarts of the plan.

  Thankfully, the two resistance spells did stack and we were all blessed with an additional +40 resistance to Earth. That put my group at +50. I hoped this would be sufficient to resist the AoE that we figured was coming.

  We entered the room and Wayne immediately taunted the Furious Dweller and Bashed the Enraged, establishing aggro on both. Jenny began attacking the other Enraged, but then stopped after establishing aggro, to heal herself. Her successful heals meant the mob would keep hitting her, and Kaitlin and Jason could focus on Wayne’s health. We tore through the Enraged quickly and then moved to help Jenny. However, her heals had put her too high on the aggro list of the Enraged she was fighting and Wayne couldn’t pull aggro. He also kept getting stunned by the Furious mob, which left him unable to do much damage wise.

  Jenny dropped below 50 percent health by the time we finished her Enraged. I worried that even with Jason and Kaitlin’s buff’s Jenny would still get hit by the AoE and would be effected by it, whatever it was.

  With both of the Blue mobs down, we focused our attention on the Furious mob. And true to form, at 50 percent the Furious Earth Dweller cast it’s AoE. Only it wasn’t a damage AoE, it was worse than that. It was a Stun. And it lasted for 10 seconds. In any regular group, this would be the death of all of us, since Wayne couldn’t maintain aggro when he was stunned, and Jason couldn’t cast heal. And the AI was smart enough that it would have gone right for Jason and taken him out of the game.

  Only we weren’t a regular group. We were the Bunny Slayers of Port Town. And that extra 10 resistance saved our asses.

  Our team mates all got hit by the stun, and were out of the fight for those ten seconds. But because of our extra resistance, our group was not affected. And Wayne was able to continue his attacks and Jason was able to heal. It happened again at 25 percent, and with the same effect. Where normally this would have destroyed another party, we were able to hold out. And after a couple of minutes we vanquished the Furious Dweller. There were cheers all around.

  “Now watch Alex do what he does best! Chance Master, you up!” Dan yelled.

  I approached the mob and looted the corpse. And it was a doozy for sure. There was four Gold on the mob, meaning 50 Silver each. Enough to really help outfit our team mates. There was also some rock pieces that I didn’t recognize, and one piece of rare loot. Gary was going to shit his pants.

  “Well, this one is a total no brainer,” I said and linked the item to the group for everyone to see.

  “Woah!” was all Gary said.

  “Congrats pull brother!” Dan said, while pushing Gary toward the corpse.

  “Are you guys sure?” Gary asked.

  We all laughed, since we had all been there before. That moment when you get some sweet loot but you can’t believe someone else doesn’t want it. In this case, no one else could use it. So we definitely had no problem with Gary taking this one.

  “Dan was right bro; you are the Chance Master. Jenny, can we keep him?” Gary said and we all laughed at that.

  * * *

  My group was not surprised to find a stair way tha
t led down to another level after we killed the Furious Dweller and the concealing mist lifted totally. Our team mates were surprised that we had another level to go through. I wanted to get to the next large room, figuring this would be the big boss.

  We followed the same pattern again, only this time we found Gary had become a wrecking machine. Twice he had to Play Dead from the level of damage he was dealing with his new Rock Knuckles. And that Stun he was randomly dishing out was not helping matters. He began Playing Dead after each successful Stun hit, knowing that would lower him on the aggro list, otherwise he would just keep pulling aggro.

  After another hour and a half, we had cleared the second level of the dungeon. Our teammates were halfway through level 10 and my group was close to level 13. Because of my one death, I was still 25 percent behind my group. We also had lots of Rusted armor in our inventory to sell later. Jenny now had a full set of armor.

  I scouted the room again and found only one mob, The Master of Earth. And he was Yellow to me but Red to my team mates. Even by himself, he was going to be a real challenge. I told everyone what we were facing and we buffed accordingly. Everyone had their Earth resistance on and Wayne charged the Master.

  Everything seemed to be going fine, even easy. Sure, the mob was hitting hard, but nothing we couldn’t face. When we approached 75 percent on the mob, we all braced for the AoE we knew was coming.

  We were wrong.

  At 75 percent the Master did in fact cast a spell, but it wasn’t an AoE that effected the group. Instead, the Master yelled out “Rise my Children and Destroy our Enemies!”

  Four Earth Dwellers spawned next to the Master and began attacking all of us. This was totally unexpected. Instead of one mob, we were now fighting five. They were not a high level, Green to my group, but Blue to our team mates, meaning they were level 11. I looked around the room quickly and came up with a strategy that I yelled out to the raid.

  “Dan, aggro one and kite it! Wayne, Bash one and keep the aggro. Jenny, off-Tank a third. Tim, Charm the fourth! Gary, you and I will take the one that Wayne aggros and kill it. Then we move to Jenny’s, then Dan’s, then Tim’s last. Keep Wayne alive everyone!”

  We moved accordingly, taking down the mobs quicker than the ones we fought previously. Much of this was due to Gary’s new knuckles and the crazy damage he was dealing. Thankfully, when they turned on Gary this time, the damage wasn’t huge thanks to their lower level, but he was still taking damage. Once Jenny’s was dead I told her to sit and regenerate her mana. I know she wanted to fight, but she was going to be crucial in making sure Tim stayed alive when his mob was un-Charmed.

  We ran around the room following Dan’s mob, attacking it as we went as it kept trying to get to Dan, pissed that Dan kept snaring it and running it around. Through the whole thing Jenny did as she was told and regenerated her mana.

  Once we killed Dan’s mob, we all ran at Tim’s mob except for Jason and Wayne. Jason was responsible, solely, for keeping Wayne alive. I told Dan to stand down on shooting Tim’s mob and chain cast his weak heal on Tim, as he was going to need all the heals he could get. Once we were ready, Jenny broke the Charm by attacking and immediately began casting a heal on Tim. Gary and I started lighting into the mob, while Dan, Jenny, and Kaitlin cast heals on Tim. Tim almost didn’t make it.

  Once we had dealt with the four extra mobs we went back to the Master. Except this time I had Jenny heal herself up to full, and regen her mana. Wayne was surviving, but was using a lot of Jason and Kaitlin’s mana. We slowly whittled the mob down to 50 percent and everyone stood up for the next wave of mobs. At 50 percent we were informed of another spell.

  This was not the same spell we encountered at the 75 percent mark. This was another AoE but it was a direct damage one. We were all effected, though our level of Earth resistance determined how much we got hit for. As such, my group got hit less than Jenny’s. We still took a pounding, though. I lost 25 percent of my health from that one hit. Dan and Jason got hit for around the same as we all had a similar constitution. Thankfully, Wayne had spent lots of his skill points on his Constitution and he only lost 10 percent of his health.

  Our teammates got thrashed. Tim, being a caster and focusing most of his skill points on Intelligence was knocked down from 100 percent health to 20 percent health. Jenny was closer to us in damage, but Gary and Kaitlin both took almost 50 percent damage.

  The worst part though was that the AI noted that Tim went down to really low hit points. And acted accordingly.

  Before any of us could react, the Master turned from Wayne, took two steps toward Tim, and proceeded to beat him dead. All in the span of three seconds.

  “Fuck! Is he dead-dead or only mostly dead?” Dan asked. No one had any idea what he was talking about. Tim was most certainly dead-dead.

  Knowing we didn’t have time to lament the passing of Tim, I started issuing orders. “Dan! Try to land a snare on the Master!” I yelled. “Wayne, if it lands, you kite that big fucker around the room. Everyone needs time to heal and regen!”

  I could tell Wayne didn’t like this idea, as it was akin to running from the mob, but the strategist in him saw the wisdom. Dan’s first attempt failed, but his second attempt landed. Wayne started running and the mob followed.

  “Dan you keep snaring until it turns and starts coming for you. Your Snare lasts what, 30 seconds? At that point we sick Wayne back on it and he can re-establish aggro,” I said to the group.

  “You got it Demanding One! And yeah, 30 seconds on the Snare.”

  With Wayne running I set Kaitlin to heal Gary. Jenny was healing herself, Dan, and me. Jason was just regening mana. Tim had respawned back in the bunny fields so he wasn’t going to be able to get back to help with the Master. I hated that not only did he lose experience, but he wouldn’t get experience from the fight either since he wasn’t in the dungeon if/when we killed the Master.

  Dan got off one more Snare before the Mob turned on him and started chasing his furry britches.

  “Alright guys, here we go! Wayne, Bash and Taunt his ugly ass!” I yelled.

  The Master was at 45 percent when we re-engaged. Again, we brought his health points down and as we approached 25 percent we all waited for the next ass whooping we would get. But at least this time we had a plan. If he spawned four new guys, we would off tank as we did before. If he hit us with the direct damage AoE, Dan would Snare him and Wayne would go off running again. This fight was taking forever. If Wayne didn’t have such a high armor rating, this likely would have been a slaughter for our side.

  At 25 percent the Master cast again, this time it was an entirely different spell. We all saw the message flash before our eyes, “Your body feels the weight of the earth upon you!”

  Bless the gods above, this was just a debuff. Where Jason and Kaitlin had casts buffs on us to increase our Earth resistance, the Master had cast a debuff, something that made us weaker. In this case, the debuff was a spell that slowed our attack speed, what was commonly referred to as a “slow spell” in the gaming world. Only our resistance was high enough that my group did not get slowed. Neither did Gary with his new knuckles. Only those with the 40 Earth resistance were hit. 50 resist seemed to be a magic number in this dungeon.

  We couldn’t have asked for a better spell. If this had hit us earlier, and our resistance had only been based on our buffs, we may not have made it this far. Jason likely would have run out of mana. Kaitlin was dangerously low as it was now. She maybe had two more heals in her.

  Thankfully the ones who were effected weren’t damage dealers. Tim was dead, and Kaitlin wasn’t attacking. The slow spell didn’t affect her mana regeneration. Only Jenny was attacking, but she was never a damage dealer, but a Tank.

  We finished the mob with a loud cheer. There were high fives from everyone. Jenny hugged Wayne which made him blush. It was adorable. I love this game.

  Everyone waited for me to approach the mob. We all knew I would be looting. I was tempted to ask if we could j
ust take a break for a bit, but I thought everyone would rush me. Tim might even try to strangle me with his robe.

  I approached the mob and focused on the corpse, then blinked. What popped up was glorious. There were three loot able items. All of them were rare. And all of them were tradeable. This was a player merchant’s dream.

  “Oh you guys are going to shit yourselves when you see this,” I said and linked the first item. It was a necklace, the first we had seen in the game:

  “Holy shit Alex, that doesn’t say binds on acquisition!” Jenny exclaimed.

  “Yup, none of the items do. These are all tradeable items,” I replied.

  Everyone stood there, staring at the item. Anyone could wear it, and everyone could use some of the bonuses for their character, but the obvious choice was Tim as he was the only Intelligence based caster in our group. I was going to suggest we give it to Tim, but wanted to see how his group reacted. It was Tim who spoke first.

  “I know I want this item guys, but it’s tradeable so I guess we should roll for it. And it would be good for any character,” Tim said.

  “Screw that noise yo! That’s not how we play. I vote for Tim and since it’s tradeable that makes this not a total loss for our brother,” Dan said.

  “Yup, I second that,” Jason said.

  “No one in this group is going to take it Tim, so as long as your group is good with it, it’s all yours,” I said.

  Tim wasn’t in the room so he couldn’t see that his party was all smiles. I put the Amulet in my inventory and told Tim he would get it when we finished the dungeon. I wondered then what we would do about his corpse and looked around for it. It was gone.

  “Ummm, Tim. Your body isn’t here in the dungeon,” I said.

  “No worries Alex, it materialized here next to me on the bunny fields a couple of minutes ago. I was worried about how I was going to get my stuff back too, but looks like that isn’t an issue,” Tim replied and we all heaved a sigh of relief.