Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1

by Joshua W. Nelson

  The only thing I could really be thankful for was that the mobs we were facing were Yellow, and our group was getting some serious experience. After only an hour in the cave system my group had leveled up to 17 and I was soon to follow. We also hadn’t had any mishaps, thanks in part to only having to deal with two mobs at a time and my management of the forces.

  The loot we were collecting was nothing special, but there was some decent cash and the Orckin did drop low quality steel armor. Nothing any of us would wear, but stuff we could sell later on down the line. There were also some low quality swords that the Orckin were using.

  Their dominance over our Dwarven companions wasn’t due to their gear, but due to their higher level and strength. We hadn’t come across any casters yet, but Tibble informed us that the Orckin were known to travel with magic users. These individuals usually held a higher tier in their hierarchy, and that led me to believe that whatever boss we fought would be a magic user.

  The complex was also quite large. Our maps were functioning, thankfully, but we had only uncovered a small part of the network, even with my scouting ahead. It looked like this was going to be a very long day indeed.

  After another half hour and quite a few more pesky mobs, I finally leveled to 17. I paused to allocate my points, prior to continuing with my scouting. None of us got skills or spells until Level 18 when Jason and Dan would get their next batch. Wayne and I didn’t get new skills until we reached Level 20.

  With points allocated, I headed back into the labyrinth of passages and started marking mobs for us. With the extra +5 to Wisdom that we all got with our new title, my Conceal/Stealth was increasing at a faster rate than it previously had. I had to forego using my trusty Blacksuit for the time being if I wanted to level my skills. But thankfully none of the Orckin could see through my normal Conceal/Stealth either. I didn’t plan to test that with any boss fights though.

  When I returned I overheard Tibble talking to Wayne about the composition of the tunnels and what the Dwarves had seen so far in regards to resources. Tibble was nearly weeping at the thought of how much his clan could make off of all the ore he had seen.

  “I speak truth here Naugha. In the time we have traveled already, my boys would be months at work collecting all the Fermium we’ve come across. The walls be practically dripping with the stuff! And here these blasted beasts have been sitting, and not collecting a bit of it. I could forgive ‘em somewhat if they was another clan wanting the rights to these mines, and working the rock, but these beasts don’t have a brain among them!”

  I reappeared a short distance from Naugha and Tibble. The conversation interested me and I asked Tibble, “Does that happen often? Another clan coming and trying to take another’s mine?”

  “Aye Alex, more often than you would think. A lot of what goes into holding a mine is hiding a mine. We don’t let them know where it is, and we slowly trickle out the product. If there was a large influx of the rock, the other clans would come looking to take it.”

  “Well then you will need to hold this mountain Tibble, at all costs. We must devise a strategy for you to do so once this is all said and done.”

  “We are miners first Alex, so your expertise would be most welcomed.”

  With that finished, I reported the mobs I had seen and our next order of business. I figured we had another hour to clear the closest passages and make our way to the boss. This would likely be a mini-boss, if our time in Resurgence had taught us anything.

  * * *

  “This place is bloody huge Alex! We’ve been at this for hours!”

  “I know Dan, but thankfully we are at a boss. I don’t know if it’s the big boss, but I will once I get some scouting done.”

  It took us another two hours to clear out the passages and arrive at a large room. Since reaching Level 17 the mobs we were facing had gone from Yellow to Blue, so the experience was coming slower. However, the cash was still flowing at the same rate. I was looking at some nice upgrades in our future. And I had a plan in my craw that could take advantage of our current situation. But first we needed to conquer these Orckin bastards.

  Putting on my Blacksuit, I entered the cavern and scouted out the mob waiting for us. There was only one, but he looked like a bad man. Standing even taller than Wayne, the Orckin Champion was wearing a full set of plate armor that looked like high quality. He also held a shield and long sword. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could Bash with that shield. He was also Yellow to me. I’m betting he was Level 19.

  I passed the information on to my companions and Wayne looked ready for a fight. Wayne hated casters because you never knew what kind of crappy AoE or DoT they would cast on you. But Wayne knew warriors, and he looked forward to going toe to toe with a challenging foe. It helped that Wayne also had 22 other fighters ready to join him. But knowing Wayne, if I told him I wanted him to take the guy solo so the rest of us could have crumpets and tea, he probably would have jumped at the chance.

  Wayne rushed into the room and started attacking the Champion. I had the Dwarves hold off for five seconds, along with Dan and I, until Wayne had established solid aggro on the Champion. Once I felt Wayne wasn’t going to lose his aggro, I would direct all of the Dwarves on the target. Dan and I already knew our rolls.

  The Champion had an amazing amount of armor and hit points. Our attacks weren’t doing significant damage at all. Although the 23 attackers were whittling him down. What was most impressive was the assortment of skills the Champion was bringing to the fight. And we knew this because Wayne kept shouting them out in obvious admiration.

  “Parry! Parry! Dodge! Riposte! Block! Hit! Hit! Block! Bash! This dude is a beast!” Wayne yelled out over and over.

  “We are coming up on 50 percent everyone! Be ready!” I yelled out.

  I imagined that a pure Warrior, like the Champion, may have an AoE Stun that would affect all of us. I just couldn’t think of anything else he could do against such a large group. But like always, the game made sure to surprise me.

  “Triple Attack! Fuck that hurt! Allister heal quick.”

  Jason usually had a set timing down for his heals, a rhythm that he established early in the fight. He wanted to maximize his mana after all. So the sudden introduction of multiple attacks in one instant could play havoc with the healer.

  Apparently, the Champion’s plan was to kill the Tank as fast as possible and use whatever skills he had to do so. This was a new tactic we hadn’t seen in Resurgence, but a very effective one. Attack with more force until the Tank died, and then watch the party wipe out after that.

  “Another Triple Attack! Dash! What the hell is Dash? Man, I’m wicked stunned.”

  We watched entranced while the Champion seemed to slide across the floor of the cavern and put his shield upside Wayne’s noggin. We had seen the Champion use his Bash on Wayne, much like Wayne used Bash on the Champion. This was totally different though. When the Dash was completed, Wayne took not only the Stun but some serious Damage. I saw things were about to go from really bad to worse as Jason began to cast his heal.

  “Allister DON’T HEAL!” Dan yelled.

  Jason followed his instructions immediately, and sat down to interrupt his spell. Wayne, as one could imagine, was livid.

  “What the hell are you doing Dan? I’m going to die here!” Wayne yelled.

  As soon as Dan saw Wayne take a swing of his hammer Dan yelled out for Jason to heal again. Jason immediately popped up and started casting. “I suggest Dan, that as soon as this fight is done, you run. And run fast. You may want to start now!”

  “I’m good. And you’ll thank me in a second. I read in the manual that Dash is a skill that not only causes a Stun, but temporarily lowers the amount of aggro from the defender. If you had landed that heal, the Champion would have turned on you and had your lunch!”

  “Shit!” Wayne exclaimed. “Now I have to thank Dan for saving all of us after this is done! I’m never going to hear the end of this at the Tavern!”

&n
bsp; The Champion executed a few more Triple Attacks, but no more Dashes. After that, it was back to normal fighting and we eventually conquered the beast. There were cheers all around.

  I determined, given that the mob was Yellow, and a singleton, we hadn’t faced the main boss. So I didn’t activate my ring to increase my Chance. Although with my error I was already at 167 Chance, so we should get some good loot.

  Resurgence surprised us again, but this time not in a good way. The Champion dropped a set of leggings, a breast plate, and a shield. But all were crap. I mean, yeah, they were high quality, but not a magic item among them. In the end, the stuff just went into our inventory to sell later. Talk about a disappointment. If it weren’t for the Dwarves, I might have called an end to this dungeon crawl right then and there.

  But the Dwarves were there, and we had promised them our help. And since I didn’t receive an announcement that we had liberated the mine, I knew our quest was not over. So with the knowledge that we had hours more ahead of us, our group looked for the next passageway to continue our adventure.

  * * *

  The passages kept getting smaller and smaller as we made our way through the next level of caverns. The mobs also went back to being Yellow for me and my group. At least in that regard we were back to getting some good experience against the Orckin. However, with so many of us crammed into these tight corridors, I was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic. If these had been Dwarven built caves, they would have been not only small but short. That wasn’t the case here, but Wayne did have to avoid a few stalactites if he didn’t want to smack his head against them. We also started seeing little stalagmites coming out of the ground. These would only be a hazard if we had to move quickly and didn’t have time to look closely at our surroundings.

  We kept clearing and moving, grinding through the mobs as we moved deeper into the caverns. I had fallen into my own rhythm, what with having to scout and manage our extra twenty bodies. I wasn’t doing as much damage as I would have liked, but we hadn’t lost a single Dwarf in our hours long fighting, and that was saying something. I think Tibble was impressed with our abilities as well as he gave a nod in my direction after my most recent foray into the darkness of the caves.

  “Doesn’t look like we have too much farther to go guys. Maybe another four Orckin before we get to, what I believe, is a large cavern. If things follow the usual layout, that should be our main boss. So let’s pay attention to what we are doing here before we get there. Last thing I want is to make a mistake before we reach the promise land. I know we are all tired, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” I said to everyone.

  “Hey, isn’t that what people see as they are about to die?” Dan asked.

  “Thanks Dan, way to bring up cheery thoughts right when we need them. Can always count on you bro.”

  Dan nodded his head toward me in a very serious manner and then held his fist out for a bump saying, “Truth brother.”

  “That was sarcasm Dan. It’s a seven letter word for ‘Stop trying to fuckin’ help.’ Or something like that.”

  Dan put his fist down and stared out off into the distance. After several seconds he looked back at me again, with another head nod, and simply said, “word.”

  Before I could further beat into Dan’s head what the meaning of sarcasm was, Wayne suggested we keep moving. I realized I was exhausted from taking on so many duties at once, and that I shouldn’t be taking it out on Dan. But it was Dan. So there was that.

  After cleaning up the last of the mobs I entered into the large cavern I had seen on my last scouting run. I found another singleton mob sitting in the cavern, although this time the Orckin Death Lord was Red to me. And I had to pause to admire the name. Death Lord sounded ridiculously awesome and was likely very tough. I searched a bit more just to make sure there weren’t any additional surprises and then returned to the group.

  After I dropped my Blacksuit, I relayed what I had seen and we waited for Jason to cast all of his buffs before we entered. Once Jason was at full mana, we entered and engaged the Death Lord.

  As we entered they all got to see the Death Lord for the first time. This Orckin was slightly shorter than the Champion, but was far more muscular. Where the Champion had used a shield and long sword, the Death Lord held a two handed great sword. It would have been a cumbersome weapon even for Wayne, but the Death Lord looked like he could manage it even with one hand. This was not to be an easy fight.

  Wayne engaged first, as was our custom, calling out the Death Lord’s skills. “He’s got a parry, a riposte, and a dodge. No block and no bash. This one likely has more tricks up his sleeve as he gets farther down in health.

  Following our usual rolls, Jason got into his rhythm of healing and Dan and I started attacking the Death Lord. The Dwarves were also swinging away at the mob, but doing very little damage. As we approached the 75 percent mark I backed away from the fight so I could direct our raid in the appropriate directions. I still hated having to step out of my comfort zone as our damage dealer, but I had accepted this task and wouldn’t slouch on my duties.

  As the Death Lord hit 75 percent the raid was hit with an AoE slow. Our natural resistances from our titles, along with Jason’s resistance buffs, kept us from being affected. I didn’t know what the resistance check was for the spell, but we had decent resistances now, and it would take a very strong spell to get around what we were bringing to the fight. The Dwarves hadn’t been so lucky.

  If they hadn’t been providing much in the way of support before, they definitely weren’t helping now. Their attacks were sluggish and time consuming, one would think they were fighting under water. I had begun mentally adding their damage into our fights, but I saw we couldn’t rely on that now, at least not until the debuff ran out.

  Since the main core of the raid, my group, hadn’t been affected, we continued to do a fair amount of damage on the Death Lord, while he continued to hack away at Wayne. It was slow going, but we soon had the Death Lord almost down to 50 percent. Just before that occurred, the debuff ran its course on the Dwarves and they were back to swinging at normal speed. Things were looking up, but I was ready for the next surprise.

  At 50 percent the Death Lord called for reinforcements. This is something we had already seen on multiple occasions, so I was ready to deal with it. That was, until I saw what the levels of the reinforcements were. Two Yellow and one Blue Orckin Marauders joined the fight. I had to make a snap decision, and I chose to have Dan take one of the Yellows on a kiting lesson. Wayne would off tank the other Yellow, and I would send all twenty of the Dwarves at the Blue. They would likely lose some of their numbers, but if we could get through the Yellow quickly that Wayne was off Tanking, he could then grab the Blue.

  “Dan, grab one of the Yellows and take him on a merry chase! Wayne, you grab the other Yellow and off Tank after Dan pulls the first away. Tibble, I’m going to need your boys to engage the last one until we can take one of these guys down. I’m sorry, you may lose men, but this will be our best chance for victory!”

  Tibble, to his credit, didn’t even hesitate and waited for me to give the target for him to attack. To him, they were all Red. Not that I knew if NPCs had similar abilities to determine if a mob was so far out of their league or not. All I knew is that when I said jump, Tibble would jump.

  I targeted the blue and was about to give my order when Wayne yelled out, “No!”

  I turned to look at Wayne and he had fire in his eyes. “No more Dwarves die here! Not today!”

  And with that, Wayne grabbed them both. I was going to argue, but it would have been like arguing with a brick wall. Only less productive since a brick wall doesn’t carry around a giant war hammer.

  I wasn’t happy with Wayne negating my call, but later would be the time to address it. “Fine. Hit the Yellow first, then the Blue. Then back to the boss. Jason, time to ratchet up the healing.”

  “On it Alex.”

  Jason was about to go through his Mana in
record time. These were no walk in the park mobs and they were beating on Wayne mercilessly. I sent the Dwarves at the Yellow and joined into the fight. Wayne had to keep going back and forth between the Yellow Marauder and the Death Lord to make sure Jason’s healing didn’t steal aggro. Wayne would occasionally hit the Blue with a Bash to be safe.

  The Yellow dropped. As did the Blue. Jason was in the “Danger Zone” for his mana. And the Death Lord was still at 45 percent. The only bright spot in all this was Dan. He hadn’t taken any damage and was happily kiting around his Yellow mob.

  “Dan, keep kiting and shooting that guy while we get this guy down to 25 percent. You ok with that?”

  “Not a worry Alex.”

  I like seeing new things in the game. I like having new experiences. And Resurgence is always good for a surprise or two while we are in a dungeon. But as I’ve mentioned before, there are two kind of surprises in Resurgence. The kind that I like, and the kind that I don’t. When the Death Lord hit 25 percent I got really lucky. Not only did I get a surprise, but I got to experience something new in the game. And yes, that was sarcasm again.

  At 25 percent the Death Lord hit us with another AoE debuff. Only this time it landed on all of us. And this time it was a major strength debuff. I didn’t have time to look until later, but when I did I saw that the debuff was for -30 strength. What did this mean for our raid? Everyone that didn’t have a strength well north of 30 was about to have a really bad day.

  The game factored in the amount of weight you could carry based on your relative strength. For instance, Jason had a Strength of 11 with a bonus of 7. So in theory, Jason could carry and wear a total of 180 pounds without being encumbered. I know, it makes little sense, but this is the games mechanics. So when Jason got hit with a – 30 strength debuff, his base Strength went to -19 with a bonus of 7, evening him out to -12. My base was 19 with a bonus of 7, so I ended up with -4 Strength. Dan and Wayne, thanks to their higher Strengths and bonuses were still in the positives. The Dwarves? Forget about it. Those guys were never all that strong to begin with. But the lack of damage to our weapons isn’t what really sucked.