by Brian Simons
“My name is Sal,” Sal said as they trekked downward. “I’m a Gourmand. I’m guessing you don’t know what that is yet. It means I have a 3x bonus to HP replenished from food. It also lets me eat pretty much everything in sight to see what other bonuses I can rack up, and what edible recovery items I can create. Sometimes there’s a buff, and sometimes there’s a debuff. Depends on the type of food.”
“And whether it even qualifies as edible,” Sybil added. “Gourmand is his class. He’s an ogre by race. Hence his handle, OgreEater. I’m Sybil_in_Shrouds, Sybil for short. I’m a Shadowsiren. That means I channel power through song. And if you’re wondering why my skin is purple and my hair is white, it’s because I’m a drow, also known as a dark elf.”
“I’m a human Seamstress,” Coral said. “I’m told I should use a bow and arrow because I have a Dexterity bonus.”
“Yet,” Daniel said, “you chose to forego the arrows. Interesting choice.”
“That’s Daniel_the_Maniel,” Sal said. “As you can see, Daniel’s an Ass. That’s a race of people made entirely of butts. That’s why he’s so lumpy.”
“They’re not lumps!” Daniel said. “They’re muscles. And I will not take insults from a pot-bellied green giant.”
“Daniel’s a Fighter,” Sal said, “not a lover.”
“I’ll have you know I’m a very nice guy. Some would even say charming,” Daniel protested.
“Not so nice to Otto,” Sal said. “You ran a sword through him just to save a few pennies.”
“You did what?” Coral asked.
“Otto, the NPC Shopkeeper,” Daniel said. “He wouldn’t give me a discount so I killed him. Then he respawned, and lo and behold, I got a discount.”
“That’s awful,” Coral said.
“He’s just an NPC,” Daniel said.
“It doesn’t matter what he is, it matters what you are,” Coral said. “All I know is, if my first reaction to impatience was murder in the game, it would eventually have an effect on my real life personality. Everything here is so realistic, how could it not seep in?”
Their conversation ended abruptly. Sal had led them to the bottom of the stone stairwell, which ended in a large wooden door. Sal pushed the door open wide. The room had a few torches on the walls casting a small amount of light across the square underground chamber. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all the same gray stone blocks. A few large Level 5 Bats flittered about the room.
The party walked inside and instantly the bats saw them and swarmed.
“Stay back and let us handle these,” Sybil said. She carried a polearm with spearheads on both ends, and made good use of both as she took on two bats at once. Sal pulled out a giant mallet and started whacking at bats, while Daniel sliced wings off one with his sword.
Coral pressed her back up against a stone wall and shuffled sideways into a corner. Daniel almost felt bad for how pitiful she looked, cowering in the cold dungeon in nothing but beginner’s rags.
The team made quick work of the bats. The large wooden door to the next room creaked open and the team moved on, finding a handful of Level 10 Skeletons. This should be a piece of cake. Sybil hadn’t even dug into her songbook yet, and Sal was still whacking away with his mallet. But where was Coral? Had she died already, or was she still hiding in the first room? Maybe she was poking at the dead bat bodies looking for bolts of cloth. Sorry about that, Daniel thought. I lied about the cloth.
Daniel looked back at the wooden door that led to the first room. Maybe it was a little sadistic to lure her into this dungeon and leave her alone. Travail’s VR technology made things pretty realistic. She’s probably feeling cold, abandoned, and afraid right about now.
>> You’ve been hit! 10 Damage.
Daniel had let his thoughts wander to that pathetic newbie and he didn’t notice a skeleton creep up and wail on him with a mace. The weapon’s spikes scraped against his metal breastplate and the heft of it pushed him back a pace. Ten damage wasn’t a lot, but it injured his pride. He wanted to take on the boss of this dungeon with full health. He dismissed the damage notification and swung his sword.
“Get your head in the game,” Sybil shouted. She jabbed a skeleton through an eye socket with one end of her spear and swung him around until he crashed into another skeleton nearby. Or maybe it was a she? It was hard to tell with skeletons.
Daniel finished off the skeleton that attacked him, and the next door unlocked. The team poured through the doorway to take on a room full of Level 20 Slimes of various colors. Daniel noticed Coral slip into the back of the room. Good, she was at least intrepid enough to join the room where all the action was. It would be a shame if she died this early in the game before she had a chance to learn anything useful.
As a large blob of green goo rolled toward Daniel, his nose was assailed with a smell like month-old egg salad. He stabbed his sword through the gel.
>> Green Slime takes 832 Damage.
Another stab reduced it to zero HP. He looked across the room and saw Sal lean his face toward a green slime. He puckered his lips like he was going to kiss the damn thing. Then he started to suck the goop into his mouth. He swallowed and let out a yelp.
“In case you guys were wondering,” Sal yelled across the fray, dragging his arm across his face to wipe off a smear of evil slime, “they taste exactly how they smell. And they’re a little poisonous.” A faint icon appeared above Sal’s head showing a green drop. As long as that icon remained, Sal would lose HP gradually.
“Sal, you’re an idiot,” Sybil said as she chopped away at a nearby blue slime with her spear.
“If it tasted like lime jello I’d be everyone’s hero,” Sal said, leaning in toward a blue slime to slurp a sip from the enemy’s face. The yellow tusks that protruded from his lower jaw were still slick from the last slime he had imbibed. Globules of the goo had dribbled onto his metal plate vest. “The blue ones replenish stamina points! And they taste bitter but not too awful, sorta like black tea that has steeped for too long.” He took a flagon out of his inventory and swiped it at the slime, filling the cup with a gooey blue sludge before whacking the creature dead with his mallet. “Oh, and the poison ran out already, in case anyone cares.”
Coral inched closer, seeming to draw courage from the diminishing number of evil blobs in the room. The team finished destroying the slimes and the next door clicked open. That door was made of bright red metal, with an ornate gold frame that had small images of dragons carved into it. It had to be the final chamber of the dungeon.
“You ok there, Coral?” Daniel asked.
She shrugged. “I’m useless to you all, I’m not getting any XP, and so far nothing has dropped any cloth. I’m still alive though.”
“Just hang back like you’ve been doing. The next room has the boss. Stay alive and we’ll pay you for your help,” Daniel said.
“I thought you were going to keep me alive,” Coral said.
“Same thing,” Daniel said. “Let’s go!”
Daniel led the charge into the next room, confident that his steel armor and sword proficiency would meet the challenge ahead. That, and brute force. As a Fighter, he rapidly gained strength with each level, and he had poured all of his skill points into unlocking a few sword fighting skills that helped him strong-arm the highest level mobs possible. Of course, just when the player base got strong, the game’s A.I. invented new mobs, new dungeons, and new challenges to keep the players growing, so he looked forward to growing stronger and stronger forever while also facing new enemies that kept things fresh.
A roaring fire filled a pit in the middle of the final room. Behind it was the raid dungeon’s boss. Daniel ran forward and plowed his sword into the thing without looking up at its face. He wanted to get the first strike in. He used half of his MP to activate his strongest move, Judgment Blade, which doubled normal attack damage.
He buried his sword hilt-deep in the thing’s leg.
>> Zombie Dragon takes 212 Damage.
Tha
t’s it? It must have really high Defense. The evil thing let out a screech like a giant eagle that had flown straight into a window pane. Daniel looked up and saw that it was shaped like a dragon but was made of rotting flesh and exposed bone. Its eyes were glowing red orbs of light. When he pulled his sword back out of its leg, black sludge leaked from the wound.
The Level 60 Zombie Dragon reared back on its hind legs and swiped at Daniel with its injured arm on the way back down. Daniel was thrown onto his back from the hit. Before the back of his head hit the stone floor, he caught a glimpse of what was hiding behind the massive corpse dragon. A treasure chest.
>> You’ve been hit! 825 Damage.
That hit took a fourth of his HP. A worthy opponent for a strong Fighter like himself! It would make the loot from the raid taste that much sweeter. The mobs in the previous rooms hadn’t dropped anything at all, so Daniel figured the boss chamber’s treasure chest held something very nice. Something he could either equip, or sell for a ton of coin on Travail’s global exchange. And he’d only have to divide the gold by three since Marco didn’t show up and Coral — well, Coral didn’t count.
Coral inched her way into the room and stood in the doorway. Her HP bar was full, but Daniel thought even a sideways glance from this undead baddie would knock her out. She looked dejected, but maybe that was a trick of the sad, flickering light cast by the flames in the room’s center.
Sal had moved in front of the dragon, holding his mallet out with both hands in a defensive stance. He activated an ability, Distracting Belch. After a long, surly noise escaped his mouth the dragon turned its attention to Sal and forgot about Daniel. Perfect. Sal was taunting the dragon. He would draw aggro while Daniel attacked.
Sybil stood directly behind Sal holding her spear upright in one hand. She closed her eyes and let her other hand drop to her side along her black tunic shirt and black boots that rose to her middle thigh. The word Eulogy appeared above her head for a moment as she began to sing.
Daniel had heard her anti-undead ballad many times. He didn’t wait to see how much damage per second it would inflict. He ran up to the monster and started hacking away at its leg, dead skin flaking off like tissue paper in a cheese grater.
Sybil’s Eulogy filled the room with a slow, dark song.
I offer you no special sadness, though departed.
Those alive have melancholy too.
This world is one of hardship, fickle-hearted.
There’s only one thing left for you to do.
I’ll be jealous you’ve escaped this life, detested.
I’m too weak yet to depart for death’s domain.
Leave your idle bones here, finally rested.
And let us mourn in peace that we remain.
An icon with a music note appeared above the dragon’s head, and each second another -25 appeared, showing that Sybil’s dirge had the desired effect. Still, it barely made a dent in the monster’s HP. It would take more than sword and song to bring it down.
The dragon brought its head down toward Sal, who braced for the attack. Instead of biting or slashing at him with an oversized claw, the monster breathed its own putrid breath against Sal, giving Sal a taste of his own medicine. The odor of death filled the room as wisps of black fog escaped the dragon’s mouth. Sal blocked Sybil from the stench cloud, taking the full brunt of it himself. There went half of his HP.
Sal reached into his inventory bag and brought a greater health potion back out. Sybil continued to sing, one depressing stanza after another, as the song gradually drained away her MP. Daniel kept hacking away at the dragon’s leg. Coral stood with her back pressed against the wall, trembling from fear, cold, or both.
Then the dragon lost interest in Sal. The effect of his taunting belch had worn off. The dragon whipped its tail around hard and batted Daniel away like a foul ball. He shot up in the air and landed near the fire pit.
>> You’ve been hit! 2,145 Damage.
He was down to his last 10% of HP! Time for one of those greater health potions. In fact, why not drink two, since Marco wasn’t here to drink his own? As he quaffed the sweet red drinks, he saw the dragon grab Sal in its mouth and lift the ogre into the air, piercing his skin with its decaying fangs. The dragon spit him out in a bloodied heap on the floor and then lunged at Sybil, who was now exposed. A simple head butt knocked her down, stopping her song. She reached for her own potion and drank.
Daniel knew that Sal had taken a beating already, and they were all out of potions. Sal’s main job was to soak up damage so the others could do their thing. With nothing around here to eat for additional health, Sal was in a tough spot.
“Healing, and fire magic. The two best things that we don’t have right now,” Sybil said, readying to defend herself from the dragon’s next attack.
“Why fire?” Coral asked.
That girl. She hadn’t said a word the whole time, and now, with a zombie dragon threatening to take out the whole team, she wanted a primer on basic RPG mechanics?
“It’s undead,” Daniel called out, slashing at the dragon, trying to distract it from Sybil. “Undead are typically weak against fire. Think cremation.” A giant claw slashed at him, but Daniel stepped back in time to avoid direct contact.
>> Miss!
The dragon let out a garbled guttural roar that sounded like it was gargling its own rotten juices. Then a phrase appeared above its head: Dragon’s Rage. The dragon stood on its hind legs and slammed its body back down on the ground, stomping repeatedly with the full force of its ample weight. The floor beneath them shook from the dragon’s tantrum. Rocks fell from the stone ceiling and landed on Daniel, Sal, and Sybil. Each took considerable damage.
>> You’ve been hit! 2138 Damage.
There goes most of the HP Daniel had recovered from the greater health potion.
Coral had managed to avoid the raining rocks. The corner she pressed herself into was outside the attack’s point blank area of effect. But Daniel’s HP was almost gone. His HP bar throbbed bright red, then dark, bright red, then dark. It was a warning that he should run away or face imminent death, but there was nowhere the run. The door to the boss’s room had closed tight and locked behind them when they first walked in.
The dragon turned to Sybil and lunged face first. She jabbed her spear into the dragon’s mouth and lodged it there, propping the monster’s mouth open and preventing its fangs from doing further damage. A slimy gray tongue writhed inside the monster’s mouth as a putrid smell emanated from its maw.
Then Daniel saw her. Coral. Standing over the fire with her wooden starter bow. She had no arrows, what could she possibly do? She set the bow on fire.
Sybil clenched the dragon’s tongue in one hand and grasped her spear in the other as she tried to wrestle it away from the monster. Coral walked up to the pair and threw the burning bow into the dragon’s mouth. It flew down its throat and disappeared. Sybil pulled her weapon free and fell backwards onto the floor. She had also yanked the monster’s tongue out of its rotting head, and held the gray, glistening thing in her hand.
The room had smelled awful before, but the stench intensified as the zombie’s corpse roasted from within. Daniel smelled rancid meat burn and bones char as a fire crackled from inside the dragon. The dragon roared and threw itself back, slamming into the rear wall of the chamber and almost stomping on the treasure chest. Then it turned and breathed fire spasmodically around the room. Sal and Sybil hit the floor as a wave of flame arced above their heads. The dragon lowered its head and aimed its fiery breath at Coral.
Daniel dove in front of her. One errant ember and she’d have been a goner. She didn’t deserve that. She could have hung back and watched the whole gang get killed, but she tried to help. Probably used the only item in her inventory to do it. It was a pathetic little gesture, but she didn’t deserve to roast alive.
Daniel felt his body burn. Uneven flames engulfed the exposed skin of his face. His steel armor conducted heat from the firestorm and spread it
over his whole body. He realized, a moment too late, that the dragon’s impromptu fire spout was tremendously powerful. For a few seconds, pain seared through every fiber of his being as his skin felt like it was melting off of him. Why did the nanos have to make this so excruciatingly realistic?
>> You’ve been hit! 3,564 Damage.
He hit the ground. Everything went black. His HP had hit zero.
>> You have died.
8
Coral stood in the stone chamber, watching in horror as Daniel collapsed in front of her, his charred remains splayed out on the dungeon floor. His blackened armor lay lifeless, his face nothing more than a soot-covered skull.
