by Oliver Mayes
“Oh, wow, I-I can’t believe it’s you! And you’re, uh, you’re not killing me yet. That’s great! Thank you. I’ve been watching you from the beginning, ever since the Touta— hey, can we get a picture?”
He abruptly put his arm around Damien’s shoulder and beckoned his thoroughly compromised friends from the trees.
“Hey, guys, can one of you take a screenshot? C’mon, it’s Daemien! I’ll take one for you after?”
There were a few seconds before the two remaining players stepped out and clomped into the clearing. A level 38 paladin healer named LightLawd, clad in heavy armor and with a double-handed scepter that looked like it could heal almost as fast as it could bash in brains. Slightly low level for this dungeon, but as long as he knew what he was doing it wouldn’t be a problem. The last of the trio quickly rounded LightLawd and strode in front of him, sword and board at the ready. Akunaratana, however you were supposed to say that, a level 42 warrior tank. He’d probably done this dungeon before. So they were only missing damage classes. Maybe another healer as well.
At least the core party roles were already filled. Now the introductions were out the way, Damien wanted to take this slow. This was the first time in a while he’d had a proper interaction with non-occultists. Damien still remembered the lesson Bartholomew had taught him when he’d first been conscripted: players were pretty much programmed to attack anything with a red name on sight. Well, anything with a red name that they thought they could beat without too much trouble.
Even if Damien’s tentative allies were marginally lower level on average, they still represented a mild risk without the element of surprise. So he was a little uncomfortable with CactusLover being so chummy.
“That’s…that’s very flattering of you—,” Damien shifted CactusLover’s armpit off his shoulder and held him a little further away, “—but let’s focus on the dungeon first. You’re here to run it, right? Do you have room for one more?”
The corners of CactusLover’s mouth turned up bit by bit. His enthusiasm was not mirrored by the party members standing fifteen paces behind him. The warrior had equipped his weapons and was standing combat-ready in front of the paladin.
“No. Cack, message HighZen, tell them to hurry up.”
So they had a full party and these were just the front-runners. This was bad news. If any party ran the dungeon without Damien it wouldn’t reset until the next day. He’d scouted this one and figured out when it was going to reset in advance, by shadowing the last party that ran it. There wasn’t much hope of finding another dungeon that wasn’t already resetting at such short notice, let alone a suitably high-level one on a Friday night.
It was peak time, it was crucial Damien record something worthwhile for his page to mark hitting level 40. CactusLover gave Damien a grimace and an apologetic shrug before obediently retreating behind his tank, where he proceeded to hammer out script on an invisible keyboard.
Akunaratana stood between Damien and his two charges. If the tank had ever dealt with Damien before, he would’ve known standing between him and his potential targets was a complete waste of time and space.
Damien could easily handle these three, so long as they were engaging on even terms. It helped that the ranger wasn’t even looking at him, preoccupied with his own task. Well, he was looking up nervously every now and then, which was about as useful in Damien’s presence as looking out the windshield of your car one second in every five. But what would killing them accomplish?
If Damien dealt with these guys before the rest of their party showed up, it would probably sink their dungeon run; losing both a healer and a tank would cripple their party, giving others time to come run the dungeon.
Another group might be open-minded, or desperate. On the other hand, killing players simply because they didn’t want him in their party would not help future diplomatic endeavors. Especially right after Damien had specifically said he didn’t want to fight.
Damien was already livestreaming, so odds were that the next party to arrive would be even less receptive than this one. The next group would likely come expressly to kill him, especially if he’d just showcased murdering their predecessors. Killing them would imply he’d never wanted to join a party, and had been trying to make Empire players drop their guard for easy kills. Even worse, one of the potential victims was apparently a fan. That didn’t sit right at all.
Sticking around to meet and greet the rest of the group was a risk, but Damien was already invested in this exercise. There was too much to gain and too much to lose to let it go without a bit of extra effort. Akunaratana was just a scrub, perhaps this ‘HighZen’ would be worth talking to.
When they arrived, they came prepared for their uninvited guest. The clearing was quickly lit by torches as one player after another stepped into it. At their head was HighZen, a warrior with a difference: he was wearing all leather gear, agility-based from the looks of it, with a samurai sword as his weapon. It was a meta build, one that used speed for quick strikes and movement instead of following the traditional stat allocation for his class. Damien could relate.
The new arrivals spread out on either side of their leader in a long line, forming a wall between Damien and their point of ingress. Damien counted seven players to join the three who’d brought them there. Full party. At least their assassin wasn’t cloaked, thanks in large part to the torches. Damien was better lit than him, though, courtesy of the Mana Wisp the party mage had sent to hover over his head.
Their full party had no need of him whatsoever and the light would prevent him from sneaking away as well. They were treating him as little more than a bonus target on the way to their primary objective. How rude.
His position was a great deal less secure than he’d hoped for, and the number of people watching his error of judgment in real time was increasing every second: 1,200 and counting.
Damien tilted his head and looked up to check the tree canopy, then returned his gaze back to HighZen as fast as he could self-correct. Sheesh, have a little self-control. I mean sure, there’s a full party of designated enemy players with weapons drawn and spells ready, but that’s no reason to give away your escape route. Quite the opposite. With all ten players amassed in front of him and no more arriving, Damien addressed the leader and made his proposal before they could make a mistake.
“I’ve been very nice, but I don’t appreciate this reception when I’ve left your front-runners completely unharmed. I’m willing to compromise. I’ll pay you for your services. 500 gold.”
HighZen looked to his left, then his right, checking his guild-mates were ready while pantomiming to see if he’d heard correctly. Then, without responding, he gestured each way with his head for the rest of the party to go around. His group started to encircle the lone player at the clearing’s center. The melee players – one assassin, one paladin tank and one dual-wielding warrior – closed the gap a little before edging sideways, making sure to keep their eyes on their target. The ranged players – a priest, a mage and a gunslinger – circled from a bit further back. The scouting party and HighZen remained in front of him, trying to occupy Damien’s attention as they attempted this disrespectful, unsubtle maneuver.
“Are you really Daemien? I never had you pegged as someone who’d beg for his life.”
Damien bit his tongue. Why couldn’t decent people have shown up? He could’ve taken the “safe” option and ambushed them while they prepared for the dungeon. Yet of course they were woefully ungrateful. He replied to his adversary in kind, his voice layered with as much sarcasm as he felt he could get away with.
“My life? Ooooooh! I see, sorry for the confusion. I was offering payment to join your party for the dungeon. Like a boost, except you won’t be boosting me since I can pull my own weight. 500 gold covers the bounty on me in Camelot, so you get paid without the hassle and you get good PR for your guild too: I have quite a lot of followers and they’ll all see you on my livestream. I made my intentions clear, didn’t CactusLover p
ass my request along?”
CactusLover put his bow away and typed in midair as HighZen continued in the same vein as he’d started.
“He certainly did. Our resident occultist expert is the one who ensured we’d bring plenty of light to see you by. Your bounty’s up, by the way. 500 won’t cover it.”
While HighZen babbled, buying time for his team to close the net, Damien processed. The bounty on him had gone up? Poorly timed. He was livestreaming, and this guy was trying to outsmart him in front of 2,000 viewers. As CactusLover reequipped his bow, the melee players encircling Damien abruptly took a few steps further back. They were now safely out of range were Damien to Demon Gate and combo into Imp-losion. His go-to initiation strategy.
Damien immediately shot CactusLover an angry look. The ranger looked pretty pleased with himself. Damien’s “fan” was proving himself a problem. So much for worrying about his welfare. HighZen was enacting a self-fulfilling prophecy: he’d called Damien naive, when it was he himself who intended to punish Damien for pinning his hopes on other players.
It must be nice, being right all the time.
The leading players were just moving to the edges of his peripheral vision. A few more steps and he wouldn’t be able to see them all without turning his head, which meant he’d be unable to dodge attacks in time. He unfolded his arms and flexed his fingers at his sides. Last chance.
“This isn’t what I wanted,” Damien started, focusing on HighZen against all instinct as the front-runners cleared him on either side, “you’re making a big mistake.”
His adversary showed nothing but excitement as Damien was flanked. Having got past his field of vision, they were now running to close the gap behind him as fast as possible. Time’s up. Damien had tried being nice. Now they’d get the other thing. He drew his dagger with his right hand as his left shot upward, pointing at the ground directly behind HighZen. Damien raised his hooded head, sneering down his nose at the man who’d rejected his offer to cooperate.
“Imp-losion!”
HighZen and the players on either side of him immediately span round to look where Damien was pointing, their arms raised to protect themselves in advance of the pull. There was, of course, no imp there to have been Imp-loded. Had Damien sent an imp to that precise spot, the players at his flanks would’ve noticed and called out a warning before it got within range, or simply attacked Damien immediately. However, having diverted the attention of the players in front of him away from him, and with his face obscured by his hood from everywhere else, Damien could now make his escape without them realizing where.
Hopefully. Because the plethora of sound effects around him indicated that everyone who hadn’t turned was attacking him.
Damien had already rolled his eyes to look directly upward without moving his head. Combined with his well-utilized sneer, he could just about see the only imp he was currently interested in: the one he’d nervously checked on in the tree canopy high above. With a focused glance and an expedient thought, Damien and the imp swapped places.
Damien grabbed the branch as the imp who’d taken his place was eviscerated by arrow fire and spell-casts. But not all the projectiles had connected with the much smaller target sacrificed in Damien’s stead. There were some screams, prompting him to look down in puzzlement. He hadn’t taken any offensive action, what was going on?
He leaned over the edge of the branch for clarification and what he saw warmed his heart. Once the imp had faded away to dust, some of the people who’d been shooting him from the flanks had hit their allies in the crossfire. His sense of schadenfreude intensified when he saw that one of those hit had been HighZen himself.
Damien had a bird’s-eye view of the clearing, and his enemies were in disarray. Now he could direct his demons like a good old-fashioned real-time strategy game. This was his favorite way to play, directing his minions from the shadows without any personal risk whatsoever. Totally removed from combat. Above and beyond all consequences. Without—
There was a dull thunk as an arrow embedded itself in his shoulder, knocking Damien backward off his perch. It’s rather difficult to play real-time strategy when you have to dodge projectiles coming out of your screen. His right arm with the dagger equipped lashed out, piercing the thick bough and preventing his fall. His momentum carried him underneath, prompting him to latch on with his remaining arm. It was just as well that agility was his second-highest stat. It had saved him from a rather embarrassing demise, at the cost of being completely exposed to everyone below.
“He’s up there, everybody look up! Fire on that branch, he’s vulnerable!”
The air around Damien suddenly sang with projectiles. The light from the torches didn’t reach that high and there was no shortage of branches overhead, so they’d resorted to firing blindly. As long as Damien didn’t let his profile show too obviously against the moonlight, he’d be safe. Or so he thought. He carefully dragged his body around the branch and was attempting to discreetly pull himself back up when a second arrow thundered into his side. It had barely struck before the priest cast a Holy Orb into the air, covering the whole clearing in bright light and illuminating Damien for all to see.
Screw it. Damien swiveled, dug his feet into the bottom of the branch and propelled himself forward and down. He twisted in midair, sinking his daggers into the tree trunk he’d aimed at. His rapid descent was jerkily halted as he hit the tree, costing him yet more health through impact damage, then he scrambled around before the next slew of missiles could catch up.
Damien shimmied down the trunk to the nearest branch in cover, his mind furiously working. How had he been spotted? He’d taken great pains to ensure they wouldn’t see where he was going with his Demon Gate, yet those arrows had come sailing straight to him, as if CactusLover knew exactly...
Oh! What a little turd! Damien had specifically told the group he was livestreaming, and CactusLover had spent a fair amount of time on his keyboard immediately after that. He was watching Damien’s livestream in a window while he played, seeing everything Damien saw. If you’re low profile, livestreaming barely matters. If you’re both high profile and a contentious loner, you’re inviting stream snipers to dump all over you. Now, for the sake of trying to appease his audience against his better judgment, he’d have to deal with this mess.
Damien’s health and stamina were both suffering. He’d have to defer minion management to his second-in-command to get a handle on this situation. No way was he sticking his head around the corner to get killed by screen-watching scum. He closed his eyes, even as more projectiles hurtled around him, and focused on his thoughts. He didn’t need a line of sight to his best minion to use him to his full potential.
Noigel, Bloodlust. One imp face-hugging every enemy, plus a hell hound on the priest. Send everything else to my location around the tree line.
It wasn’t his preferred plan, but it was the only real option he had besides cutting and running. He certainly wouldn’t end the livestream until this was resolved. He’d handle this, with Noigel’s help. He patted the Bag of Holding at his waist and held his hand out to drink a health potion, just as the suppressing fire on him abated and the screaming down below began.
The Death-God party had taken such pains to keep their distance from Damien when he was at the center of the clearing. The squishiest of them were arrayed around the outside, nearest the tree line. Which is where Damien had been keeping his 30 souls’ worth of minions concealed. Combined with the movement and attack-speed boosts that his succubi’s ‘Bloodlust’ provided his summoned units, not to mention the ‘Hell’s Angels’ trait granting his imps wings that exponentially increased their movement speed and flight, it was no surprise they were finding their marks. He’d had his tentative allies flanked long before they’d attempted to flank him.
Damien was relieved he’d survived long enough to show he wasn’t as helpless as he’d endeavored to appear. He hadn’t chosen this dungeon simply for the prestige, it was also an ideal staging
ground if things did not go his way. Now it was Noigel’s turn to capitalize on his planning.
Noigel was a fantastic unit manager. He and Damien had refined target priority, tactics and combination moves over the last couple of weeks. It was paying off.
Damien risked a glance around the tree trunk to get a grasp on the situation. Over half the players were imp-capacitated, which was Damien’s shorthand for ‘they were rolling around on the floor, trying to pull imps off their faces’. The priest was all but dead, an imp raking his face and a burning hell hound savaging his throat, and with no help in sight.
Face-hugging had always been effective crowd control, but only lasted a few seconds depending on the target. Using so many at once was a gamble. The more physically capable players were dealing with their imps, then assisting whoever was nearest. Removing the priest had been important, but Damien needed more value out of this.
Damien picked out the mage. Rather than leaving the dirty work to others, Noigel had taken on the secondary target personally and was clawing and biting for all he was worth. The mage had lost a quarter of his health and the rest of Damien’s enemies were still mostly preoccupied.
Damien raised his arms, a dagger clasped in each hand, and Demon Gated. He’d no sooner swapped places with Noigel, his thighs straddling his unfortunate opponent’s head in a purely circumstantial tea-bagging, than both his hands plunged down. Each of them pierced the top of the mage’s head through to the hilt.
Casters were not generally built with high constitution, and this one was no exception. Damien rolled off the corpse and stared back at the tree. Noigel was leaning round the trunk so Damien could see him, anticipating his return without any need for instruction.
Having activated his ‘Rift Walker’ trait which granted experience for killing an enemy, Damien’s Demon Gate cooldown had been reset. He’d only been absent from his tree for a few seconds when he Demon Gated back into it again, safe, sound and away from battle. Noigel did not fare so well in Damien’s place. An arrow sailed through his head and blew his brains out into the undergrowth behind him.
