by Oliver Mayes
‘plinkplinkplinkplinkpli-’
The first spine, projected rather than blundered into, was enough to end Damien’s Possession. He could still hear them ricocheting not only around the space where the wraith had been but all across the walls, even from the next room over. One of the spines flew through the doorway, whistling past Damien’s head, to shatter on the far wall. It was brief, yet exceptionally noisy. There were a lot of Cave Urchins in there. He could live with that. All he had to do to prevent them from firing was remain in stealth. What he could not live with was that they had now found their way to the floor. Where he could stumble into them at any given moment, ending his stealth and his stream immediately.
There was at least one Cave Urchin on the floor, almost right next to the door. He had to find out how many more there were, and where. The rest of his minions did not have stealth as their ally, so they’d be destroyed upon entry. There had to be another way of revealing the location of those on the floor, so he could avoid them on his way to the chests. He’d have to figure out a way of opening the chests without ending up on the receiving end of a fatality as well, but the first step was identifying where his enemies were. He’d require assistance to do that without dying. Sorry, Noigel.
He pointed at the ground and summoned the imp. Noigel arrived, but Damien was making his apologies before the imp had even finished his customary salute.
“Sorry, Noigel, you’re going to die now.”
At least he’d been honest. Noigel, understandably, did not appreciate Damien’s forthrightness. He started back-chatting in his usual tongues, but Damien saved them both time by talking over him.
“I wouldn’t normally ask you to do this, but there’s an obstacle here I can’t get past without possessing an imp. I’m short on soul energy and summoning another imp would just result in you dying later, because I can’t take—”
Noigel folded his arms and sat with his back to Damien. Great. He supposed it was fair. He needed time to offer an explanation for why he was reneging on their usual deal.
“You don’t know what I’m dealing with yet. Let me show you what the problem looks like so you know I’m not being lazy.”
Noigel swiveled back toward him, still looking unimpressed. Except Damien wasn’t sure how he could...wait, yes he did. He might not have any rat spleens at his disposal to lob around, but he had other resources that could act in its place. He went into his inventory and placed one of his five stone blocks on the floor. He didn’t need them for construction just at that moment. He removed his dagger and chipped at the corner, creating a stone and a slightly damaged building block. He thought about it, then created a few more. He ended up with five stone chips and a building block that was so damaged it shifted in his inventory to occupy a new slot there. It could no longer be used in construction and would no longer stack with the pristine building blocks.
He kept chipping away. Eventually, by the time the block was completely worn down, he had a stack of twenty-six stone chips. His dagger had only taken a few points of durability damage, because he’d been careful about it. It was nothing like as taxing as when he’d tried to do the same thing to the walls of the Dark Tower, which had proven completely impenetrable.
Damien gathered up his fascinating rock collection. With both him and Noigel out of line of sight, he tossed one of the chips around the corner, into the Cave Urchin-occupied room. About a second after he’d thrown it in, before it had even hit the ground, the noise of tens of spines striking all around the room echoed into their hiding spot. Damien had no doubt whatsoever that many of them had hit the tiny stone chip while it was in midair.
“There are Cave Urchins in here that shoot projectiles when they sense sound or movement. They’re stealthed and very accurate, but immobile. I died because of them yesterday, remember? When I left you behind to investigate the room by myself? You must’ve been automatically dismissed when I died, now you know why. I need to get a clear idea of where all the Cave Urchins are so I can avoid them. Which means you’ll have to go into the room after I’ve made them visible so I can see where they all are.”
Noigel blew a raspberry and turned his back again. He clearly wasn’t keen on dying. Damien sighed. He’d become aware that he was livestreaming again, in the wake of Noigel’s insubordination. He needed Noigel’s help, but he couldn’t waste time here. There was a way of doing this.
“Alright. I’ll cut a deal with you. You want to have your “special time” with a succubus, right?”
Noigel span round very slowly to face him again, arms still folded. He was listening.
“If you do this...I’ll summon a succubus after I’ve got through the room. The two of you can have your “special time”. I’ll just turn my back and let you get on with it. How does that sound?”
Noigel stroked his chin, as if he were considering the proposal. Damien knew very well how attractive it must be. He was counting on the draw being too great to resist and was not disappointed. Noigel stuck his hand out and they shook on it, in front of all Damien’s viewers. They might not have known exactly what “special time” entailed, although many of them could probably guess. Damien felt like a pimp. He suppressed a shudder, but the deal was done.
“I’ll throw another stone in, then immediately cast Possession on you. The Cave Urchins will fire at the stone and there will be a three-second delay before they fire again. I’ll have three seconds to put you way up in the top of the room so I can see where all the Cave Urchins are while they’re still visible.”
Noigel stuck his thumb and forefinger together. Sorted. While Damien could simply summon a second imp to perform this task, there was more at stake here. He still wanted to reward Noigel, and making him work for it would further reestablish the pecking order between them that had been disregarded of late.
“Ready?”
Noigel nodded and braced himself with his hands and feet on the floor, ready to push off. Damien threw the stone and a half second later he’d possessed Noigel. He kicked forward just as the splintering of spines around the room began. As he passed through the doorway, Damien got his first glimpse of the latest obstacle. It was bad. There were a lot of Cave Urchins in there, all of them on the floor. As if they hadn’t been bad enough consigned to the corners of the ceiling. Damien flew straight up as he passed through the doorway, all the way to the ceiling. The imp’s field of vision was greater than Damien’s own, courtesy of his enormous fishbowl eyes. Each bottom corner of the room had just come into his range of vision when the Cave Urchins arrayed below all fired at once. Damien tried to dodge, but there were too many projectiles coming from too many different angles. He had no chance. The Possession ended.
At least Damien had been honest regarding the outcome. Noigel had sacrificed himself on his behalf, now it was up to him to make good on his promise. That would not only require staying alive, it would also require killing at least one Cave Urchin. He only had 6 souls left in his Soul Reserve, having summoned the wraith and Noigel. He needed at least one more for a succubus. How he’d achieve that he had no idea, but the first room had seemed unbeatable when he started it as well.
He brought up his own livestream in his menu and stifled a snort. With any loss of focus in the Dark Tower inviting death, he’d do well not to make a habit of laughing to himself. It was difficult, though, since he was looking at the infinity window he’d inadvertently created. Damien was watching himself watching himself watching himself watching himself watching himself. After that the window became too small to see any further.
He scrolled the livestream back a few seconds and watched himself fly Noigel into the room. Then he paused it on a frame where he had a good view of the whole floor layout. There were a lot of Cave Urchins. They were forming the walls of a pathway, although one particular placement was obviously more tactical. The chest in the far corner was completely encircled by a cluster of them.
The near chest did not pose the same difficulty. While there were plenty of Cave Urch
ins preventing him from traveling to it directly, it was not blocked in the same manner as the further one. He could start from there. He examined the still image he’d taken from his own stream and plotted out a route to it. He’d have to start by walking straight in about halfway through the room, then take a sharp left, then another sharp left before he got to the wall, then there was a gap he’d have to thread to reach the chest.
He wouldn’t be able to make a single sound once he entered the room. It was time to address his viewers as his player character in what could well turn out to be the last time in twenty-four hours. He whispered, even though he was still safe.
“I want to see what’s in the first chest before I get through the room. Let’s hope it’s not more knives. I’ll do my best, but this could all be over very quickly if I get it wrong. Wish me luck!”
He crouched down and tiptoed into the room, his picture of the Cave Urchin-riddled layout pulled into the corner of his HUD for reference. The first part was easy. All he had to do was walk forward. He got about halfway there, checking the picture constantly, before the nerves kicked in and he stopped moving. He hadn’t taken the stress of what he was doing into account.
While there was clearly plenty of room to move, the spines of the Cave Urchins were very long and extremely pointy. A single pinprick would be enough to remove stealth. Worse still, he had no frame of reference for the distances. The floor was a single slab of impenetrable rock and the Cave Urchins were all invisible. It was very difficult to judge where he stood in relation to the picture he’d chosen to rely on so heavily.
He took another step forward. Not dead yet. Great. He took another half step forward. Looked up at where Noigel had died as he examined the picture. Looked at the walls on either side, availing him nothing. Took another half step forward. And froze. He had no idea whether or not he was supposed to turn left yet. He examined the picture intently, hoping there would be some answer. There was not. He had to make a decision: turn left or keep going straight. He inched another step forward. Still not dead. Then he turned exactly 90 degrees and took a deep breath. It felt like he was in the right place. He checked the picture again. Looked at his own position. And raised a foot into the air.
His chat box pinged. In the dead silence, Damien almost jumped out of his skin. His lungs felt like they might explode from the pressure. His nostrils were whistling, ever so slightly, as the air he was trying to suppress was forced from them. He tightened his lips into the tiniest of openings, forcing himself to breathe exceptionally quietly. It seemed so very loud, and the enemies he was encircled by could register it at any moment. He was frozen like that for about half a minute, until he trusted himself enough to replenish the air in his lungs by degrees.
All this for a bunch of Cave Urchins that he thought he’d already made himself the master of. Twinned with the exceptionally poorly timed message. Who’d thought it would be a good idea to ping him at that precise moment? He opened his menu and found out.
Lillian: Aetherius hasn’t stopped ranting for two minutes. He thinks you’re about to die. It sounds accurate. You’ve blocked him, he can’t message you. Please unblock him.
So Andrew had almost killed him again. This marked the fourth time Damien had nearly been killed by Andrew, but only the first time it had happened indirectly. Scowling twice as hard to make up for the noise he couldn’t make, Damien slowly turned around on the spot, went straight back through the doorway and set himself down with his back to the wall, where he’d be safe. As annoyed as he was that he’d been messaged while he was concentrating, his relief not to be in that room was greater. So much for his plan.
He was about to go through with Lillian’s request when he remembered his viewers, and the implications. Was he really about to take advice from Andrew, aka Aetherius, on a livestream? That would be odd, to say the least. His career had been built around Andrew’s destruction. How would his followers react to this twist? What would it do to his ratings?
He wasn’t sure what his followers would think, but it could only push his ratings in one direction. Up. He found a new reason to complain. He wanted to solve this by himself. Accepting Andrew’s help not only seemed wrong, it seemed...he wasn’t sure how to put it...counterintuitive? He’d come to Andrew for help before and it hadn’t exactly worked out in his favor, in the short term at least.
Damien started typing out a message to Lillian, asking if she could just tell him herself without having to unblock Aetherius, but he promptly deleted all of it. That seemed worse. He couldn’t just pretend Andrew didn’t exist, after what he’d seen him do against Archimonde when Lillian needed him. It would’ve been easy enough to just let her die, to run around Archimonde while it was clearly focused on killing everyone else. But he hadn’t. He’d put himself at risk on their behalf.
Damien would probably have immediately unblocked Aetherius and taken his advice if he wasn’t being watched by so many strangers, worrying more about what they’d think than what he himself believed. Which was when he realized that all the text he’d been typing out to Lillian had been on display in his livestream. Including to Andrew himself, who was watching. Obviously. Deleting the message hadn’t prevented it from being seen, it had just given everyone a clear view of his reservations while leaving them open to interpretation. Andrew would probably not interpret it well.
Now he had to unblock Andrew, didn’t he? Super. The joys of livestreaming. Damien went into his meager friends list, noting Kevin’s absence only briefly, and highlighted the name. Then he unblocked his erstwhile nemesis. Almost immediately as it was unblocked he received a response. Not a message, but a voice call. While it rang, he decided to enlighten his viewers as to what was happening. At least he could set the record straight before Andrew stuck his oar in.
“So...here’s the thing. I got past Magnitude’s wall in a party with a few other players. Aetherius was one of them. He was really good, he didn’t stab me in the back or push me down a hole or anything! Anyway, he turned out to be really helpful. I gave him back his Bag of Holding...didn’t need it, it’s a trash item anyway...and it was a good deal to have him on our side. Let’s see what he has to say about this next room.”
Damien answered the call and was met with complete silence. For about three seconds.
“A trash item?”
“Alright fine, it’s really useful and I didn’t want to give it to you. Happy?”
“Livestreaming isn’t easy, is it? I saw you typing—”
“Yes, Andrew, I know you saw me typing. I’m under quite a lot of stress right now. There are a lot of people waiting for me to get on with this, so I’d appreciate you sharing your insight sooner rather than later.”
“Your picture idea was good. Really good. But that room doesn’t have any frame of reference to work with. It’s probably designed that way, to stop you from doing exactly what you’re trying. Ironically, the Cave Urchins are the only thing you can use as a frame of reference in there, but if you could see them there wouldn’t be an issue. I couldn’t work out where you were standing just from looking at the picture, so I doubt you could manage it...with all that stress you’re under.”
“Nice save, Andrew.”
“Thanks.”
“Well now you’ve outlined the problem, do you have any good ideas?”
“Of course I do.”
Yeah, of course he does. Damien waited to be clued in. Andrew didn’t care to elaborate.
“Could you share it with me?”
“I could.”
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Yup. I’m having a great time.”
“I’m glad one of us is. If you’re not going to hel—”
“Your first option is to level up and come back when you’re ready for this. It’ll be easier to detect enemies in stealth if you’re comparable in level. This dungeon doesn’t look like it was designed for players before about level 48 or 49. You’re making life pretty difficult. I’m surprised the
Cave Urchins haven’t detected you yet, since you’re wandering around so close to them. You’re lucky they don’t work with conventional mechanics, or else you’d be dead already.”
“Can’t leave until I’m done with this place. It’s now or never. Do you have a suggestion that doesn’t involve giving up?”
“I do, but you’ll find it even less attractive than the first one. Earlier you were throwing rocks into the room. Do that again, inside the room.”
“Oh, brilliant! Wish I’d thought of that. Except doing it will break stealth and I’ll get murdered before it hits the ground.”
“That depends on how you throw them.”
“Go on?”
“The headset first registers whether an attack is made based on intent. Not on whether or not the attack is successful. That’s why making an attack removes stealth, regardless of whether or not you hit your intended target. With me so far?”
“I think so? Hit me up with the second half, please.”
“If you’re not making an attack, you won’t go out of stealth. Chucking a stone won’t count as an attack. Well, unless you hit something with it, then it’ll be an accidental attack. That would unstealth you. If I’ve understood correctly, the Cave Urchins only follow movement and sound. So long as you’re in stealth they can’t detect you at all. The stone will become visible about a half second after it leaves your grip, the same point at which you’d become visible if you threw it with malicious intent. So throw the stone, but not anywhere it will hit an enemy before it becomes visible. Your picture should be good enough to find somewhere safe to throw a stone.”
“You’re a mage. Why do you know so much about stealth mechanics?”
