Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1

by Joshua W. Nelson

  “And I doubt he is a pure warrior Alex, not with everything we have seen. I am betting on a Dark Paladin.”

  “Let’s treat this like we would any other boss fight. Expect bad stuff at 75, 50, and 25. With a Dark Paladin it could be a damage over time spell, a stun, or he could call forth some more bad guys like we had below. You know the drill. If we get four or less extras, Dan takes one, I take another, and Wayne grabs the rest. If we get more than that, we pray they are low enough level. Whenever you are ready Wayne, lead the charge. Preferably with something derogatory about Dan,” I instructed.

  “Hey dude! That’s not cool. I said that shit hurt my feelings!”

  Without further hesitation Wayne charged into the room yelling, “TheClaw thinks Episodes 1,2, and 3 were the best!” and then struck the Regent.

  “Wow bro. Totally fucked up man. That’s worse than saying something about my dead mom like Allejandro did!”

  Despite having been released almost 70 years before, Star Wars remained one of the greatest franchises of the human race. It also helped that May 4th had become the biggest unofficial official holiday ever. And any diehard fan could tell you, there were only nine movies ever made. Episodes 4-12. No one would lay claim to those first three.

  “It’s ok Dan, I won’t tell the guys that you dressed up as Jar Jar every year for Halloween till you were 14,” Wayne taunted.

  “I did not! It was just that one time. And it was college. And I was curious!”

  “Dan, did you even go to college?” Jason asked.

  “What? No. Of course not. Wealthy, remember?” Dan replied.

  We were able to have this fun, witty banter because we played so well together. And because the mob was still around 80 percent. The joking would stop as we got it closer to 75.

  Jason’s mana was good and we hadn’t been hit by any of the Regent’s spells. Even Wayne was only taking damage from that beast of a hammer.

  But as soon as it hit 75 percent, all hell broke loose. The Regent stopped attacking and started chain casting an area effect direct damage spell on all of us. We resisted some of them thanks to our buffs and natural resistance, but plenty got through. And the ones that landed came with a mini stun as well. It wasn’t enough to break aggro off of Wayne entirely, but we were all taking serious hits.

  “Shit. Dan, break off and heal yourself and me. Jason, concentrate on yourself and Wayne. I’ll keep attacking.”

  We weren’t in total fear of getting beat down, but each time the spell landed it would interrupt Jason’s efforts to regenerate mana. Same for Dan. And we were going through it pretty quick. Dan wouldn’t be able to do this throughout the fight. At this rate, he would run out of mana before we hit 50 percent on the mob.

  We got a small blessing when my dagger finally had a proc that landed and the Regent’s armor dropped forty percent. The debuff wouldn’t last for long, but it was enough that we were able to not only whittle away at the Regent’s health bar, but also interrupt some of his casts. That gave Dan and Jason precious time to regenerate some mana. After five minutes of this, we finally had the Regent down to 50 percent.

  We braced for the unknown, but were happy to see eight new mobs spawn around the Regent. They were Undead Servants. Funny that eight new targets would make us happy.

  Six of them were Green and two of them were White, meaning they were at our exact level. I guessed that the green ones were probably only one level below us, and I worried that Jason’s Banish Undead wouldn’t kill them completely and it would send mobs his way. And now wasn’t the time to have Jason playing the Tank.

  “Dan, you take half, to include one White, and I will do the same. Focus on the White first. Once you have it down to 50 percent, Jason, you hit it with Banish. Then come over here and help me with my White Dan. Go!” I ordered as quickly as I could. The guys had gotten so used to me giving out the orders that no one even stopped to think if this was a good idea. And I liked having open discussions, but sometimes decisions had to be made, and I was usually the first to make them.

  Dan successfully Snared all of his mobs and started kiting them around the room, focusing his damage on the White. Once it was down to 50 percent, Jason unleashed his spell and it fell to a mere 5 percent. Low enough that it wouldn’t get to Jason before Dan could kill it. After that Dan started shooting arrows into my White Undead Servant while avoiding his other three Greens. It was quickly brought down to 50 percent and Jason unleashed another Banish.

  Downside of all of this was that I was getting my ass kicked. Hard. I couldn’t kite the mobs like Dan could, and so I had four mobs steadily beating on me. The Greens weren’t doing much in the way of damage, nor really was the White, since I had a pretty high armor class. But put enough holes in a dam, no matter how small they are, and eventually it is going to break. And my frail Rogue was 30 percent from breaking. With the White mobs down we tore through the Greens, with Dan trying to take aggro on those as well. By the time we finished, I was at 25 percent health, and Dan was at 75 percent.

  Thankfully, the Regent had stopped casting his direct damage spell and was just hitting Wayne with the hammer. But my debuff had expired some time ago, and Wayne’s attacks were doing minimal damage. Dan knew his place in this role and started meditating so he could throw some small heals my way. And I went back at the Regent, hoping my armor debuff would proc again.

  I had no such luck, but we did slowly work the Regent down to 25 percent. The benefit of it taking so long, and no direct damage spells, was that Jason got ample time to regenerate some mana while Wayne continued to Tank the Regent. Even my health got back up to 60 percent. Dan was still at 75 percent. Jason was of course at 100 percent.

  At 25 percent we got hit with the mother of all damage over time AoEs. All of us got hit. And all of us saw our health bar starting to deteriorate. At the rate we were damaging the Regent, and the rate the AoE was taking our health, it didn’t look good that we would survive this fight.

  I got lucky with my proc and it landed again, debuffing the Regent’s armor. We started to see a quicker decrease in the Regent’s hit points, but they were still too high for us to last through the fight. But then I had an idea.

  “Allister! What is the cast time and recast time on your Banish Undead?” I yelled.

  “Three seconds to cast. Almost instant recast. Why?” Jason responded.

  I didn’t bother to explain as we were dying quickly. “Wayne, put the Regent next to the throne. Allister back up to us. Then I want you to cast Banish Undead. Followed by Stun. Followed by another Banish Undead. The distance between us you should get your casts off in time. Dan, let’s light this guy up!”

  Dan, Wayne, and I moved to the throne and kept hitting the mob. It was at 17 percent. And just like that it was at 10 percent. And it was running toward Jason.

  Before it could cover the distance, Jason’s Stun landed and the mob stopped in its tracks. With us continuing to hit it mercilessly. Before it could resume its run again, Jason executed my plan and hit it with the second Undead Banish and it dropped to 2 percent.

  When the mobs got below 5 percent their movement speed became much slower, and you could run around without having to worry about the mob chasing you down. As such, as it ran for Jason, he was able to stay out of harm’s way. While it did that, we followed behind it, and finished off the Regent.

  “Hurry Jason, shoot me a heal. Dan, heal yourself!” I yelled.

  I was painfully close to dying, and at the last second Jason was able to land a heal that saved me. I couldn’t tell you how happy I was. Not that dying bothered me, although the loss of experience did suck, but I was happier that I wouldn’t have to spend hours running back to the castle and one of the other guys would have to loot the corpse. After 15 minutes the corpse became fair game to anyone that wanted to loot it, and after thirty minutes it would disappear.

  “And the savior of the day ladies and gentlemen, Allister the Undead Slayer!” Wayne yelled out.

  “Well I am
the Cleric Naugha, I should be the one who has a direct line to the saviors and all that,” Jason replied while laughing.

  Undoubtedly we were all happy, but I was interested in seeing what we had for loot. The body of the Regent had disappeared, and in its place was a chest of some sort. I was guessing this was the treasure we were meant to find.

  I focused on the chest and blinked. When the inventory opened we had a trove of goodies to go through.

  “Ok guys, linking the first two now. I’m going to say these are no brainers,” I informed the guys.

  “To quote brother Dan, ‘Holy titty balls Batman!’ Alex, are you saying I should get both of these?” Wayne asked.

  “Like the man said Wayne, this one is a total and complete no brainer. Like even I can figure this one out,” Dan said.

  “Indeed TC, even you can see the benefit of Naugha getting these items,” Jason said while smiling.

  “Not quite level 15 yet, but I’m definitely going to use them both. Thanks guys!” Wayne said and looted both items.

  “Alright guys, I do believe we have found our first item that is going to require us to roll for it. And I’m not taking any altruism on this one. Any of us could use this and all of us are going to want it. Believe me,” I said before linking the last item.

  There was complete and total silence. And it was totally understandable. To put this into perspective, Wayne was currently sitting at 4700 hit points. With this ring he would go to almost 19k hit points. For five minutes he would not need a single heal in any fight we had seen to date. Even against the Regent we just fought.

  As explained earlier, every game has the ability for players to choose a set range of numbers, say 1-100, which they can have the computer randomly assign a number to each person. In the past, the computer would display the number so everyone could see. In Resurgence, the computer, with it’s awful computer voice, said the number out loud. The beauty of the roll function was that no one could cheat. Not like I worried about that with these guys, but in most games where you are with lots of pick up groups, the chance for cheating goes up exponentially.

  In the end it was just like rolling a dice, but a 100 sided dice, or 1000 sided dice, or more. The range of numbers is unlimited. However most just choose 1-100.

  “Let’s roll for it guys. 1-100,” I said.

  Dan answered first, “72.”

  Then Jason followed with a sigh, “53.”

  I was next, “84.”

  Wayne was the last to go and I could see he was nervous to give the command. Like I said, this ring was a game changer.

  “27.” Wayne just hung his head in shame. But then he perked up, probably because he remembered he just got two amazing items.

  “Congrats Alex!” they all chorused. I wasn’t going to hesitate at all, I really wanted that ring. I also couldn’t wear it yet, but we were very close to level 15 at this point.

  “There is one more item in the chest. It’s a Regent’s Signet Ring. It doesn’t have any stats on it though.”

  Jason piped up at that point. “If you don’t mind Alex, well everyone, do you mind if I take that ring. I think I might know a use for it.”

  I looked over at Jason and thought about all the times he ran off into Port Town on his own. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with all the time you spend in the ritzy part of Port Town is it Allister?”

  Jason blushed a little and nodded his head. “It is, yeah.”

  “I’m good with it then, but you are going to have to tell us what that is all about.”

  The other guys agreed and Jason looted the ring.

  “Let’s head out side and clear those mobs on the parapets. After that we can figure out what to do next,” I said. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement and we headed out to clear out the last of the mobs in this wonderful treasure chest we had found.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Wait. You can become the King?” Wayne asked.

  We had cleared out all of the mobs at the castle and were heading back toward the caves. We didn’t know how long respawn would take, or if it would happen at all, but that was where we killed our first mobs. In the meantime, Jason was explaining why he wanted the Signet ring.

  “No. Nothing like that. But you can get a title. It doesn’t come with any bonuses; it just gets added to your name. So like Duke Naugha. Something like that. I’m still going through the quest.”

  “Bros, TheClaw wants a title!” Dan exclaimed.

  “I didn’t see a selection for Court Jester Dan.”

  “Harsh Alimony. Very harsh.”

  “So if it doesn’t come with any stats, why do it?” I asked.

  “I just thought it would be cool to have. You know, like Count Allister or something. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys before, but since it didn’t give any bonuses I didn’t think you guys would be interested. And I didn’t want to deviate from benefiting the group.”

  “So what else do you need Allister?” Wayne asked.

  “It only requires two items to get a title. The higher the item, the higher the title. You need to get a ring and a crown from a false ruler. That’s as detailed as it got.”

  “Good to know. Any crown we get, that doesn’t have any stats obviously, is yours first bro. Personally, I think the whole thing is pretty cool.”

  “On the real bro. I think I could even live with Court Jester TheClaw.”

  When we got to the entrance of the caves we saw that the first guards had respawned. It made sense since it had been hours since we cleared these out. I volunteered to check up to the door and see what respawn looked like, and the guys agreed.

  After a quick run through the caves I saw that all of the mobs had returned up to the door. We could easily stay here and farm these guys for cash and experience. I was tempted to do so. But first I wanted to take care of some logistics.

  “I’ve been counting up our cash guys. And we have over 100 Gold from all of these mobs. It was quite a haul. I hate to waste time but we need to think about how we are going to spend this cash. I’m tempted to just keep farming this location until we have enough gold to buy all of our horses. But that leaves us with another problem.

  “If we leave this location, I worry that the whole thing will reset and we won’t be able to come back here and keep killing. But separately, once we hit level 15, I want to make sure Dan and Allister get their next spells. Also, to make sure we don’t lose this place in our downtime, I was thinking of doing a rotational thing, like taking watch. You know, so we can get some sleep too. What do you guys think?”

  “Might as well put me to work. I will come up with a rotation, that will naturally benefit everyone’s sleep cycle, and allow us to continue a presence in this place. We can take 3 hour shifts, which will give everyone ample time to sleep, although the middle two will have it rough. I’ll take one of those since I don’t sleep much anyway,” Dan offered.

  “Sounds good, and I will take the other one. So one of us has to remain here for the next few hours,” I added.

  We came up with a rotation, with Jason taking the first shift, me the second shift, Dan the third, and Wayne the last. I asked Wayne if he would be ok with that. “Alex, I’ve had to work out in the cold, freezing my balls off, dealing with drunks and women who drank themselves to the point they thought they were 10s. I can handle playing the game for a few more hours. You know, doing something I enjoy.”

  “So you will just talk with Jenny. Got it!”

  If there was a way to kill other players in the game, good chance Wayne would have done it right then. But the red spreading throughout his face made the evil look in his eyes totally worth it.

  * * *

  I logged in after the first shift was completed and after taking an hour and a half nap. Jason was sitting in the same position as when we left. He got up and stretched a bit when he saw me approaching. “That kind of got boring really fast.”

  “Sorry about that brother. I knew it was going to suck.”

  “En
joy sitting around then. See you in nine hours.”

  “Oh, I’ll be exploring this place some more. So I’m hoping it won’t be as bad for me. Good to have a skill that allows you to go anywhere, just as long as nothing hits my fragile form.”

  Jason laughed and signaled he was logging off. Once he was gone, I started practicing my Blacksuit. I didn’t plan on going into the castle at all. Instead I planned on mastering this skill through practice. I wanted to be able to do it while standing, walking, running, or hell even sliding along the floor on my knees. To use Conceal/Stealth, the character had to at least be stationary for the time it took the Stealth to engage. After that, you could initiate Conceal at any time.

  But Stan had implied that the Blacksuit could be used at any time, and even while on the run. So I was going to baby-step my way from where I was at to where I wanted to be. However, there was one thing I did want to check out, before I started my practice.

  I initiated my Blacksuit and headed into the cave, bypassing all of the guards, and going through the door. Once I was in the manor, I headed up to the second floor. We had killed the Yellow mobs four or five hours previously, and I wanted to see if they had respawned yet, but they had not. I was going to check again before I logged out when my shift was done. I was betting they were on an 8 hour respawn. And the boss, the Undead Regent, was likely to have an even longer respawn.

  I kept thinking about our current issue and how we could be in multiple places at the same time. One more run through of the castle and we would all have our level 15. Jason and Dan needed their spells, which meant at least one of them needed to go to Port Town. I needed to sell all of the spells we had found and the Dark Caster robe, but that required a trip to the Dark Race city. And Wayne needed to drop off the robe for Tim. Any of us could have done that last one, but we wanted to help Wayne out in this case. As Dan said earlier, it would allow us to “Not player hate, but player congratulate.” Whatever the hell that meant.