-157hp
Companion suffered -230hp
Vile tasting ooze filled Zack’s mouth, making him cough and splutter. He felt Amy kicking next to him and might have heard her scream.
Zack felt himself lifted into the air again, though all he could see was black. He retched up a mouthful of the disgusting, sticky sludge and heard Amy doing the same.
Missy’s healing magic filled him and he saw his and then Amy’s HP shoot up as the Bard used some of her ‘oh shit’ heals.
He brought out a health potion at the same time as Amy used a Restoration Potion. Sucking it back, he then let the bottle drop into the sludge.
A second later, the boss brought them down again, slamming them against the bottom once more.
-133hp
Companion suffered -190hp
Not as hard as last time but still bloody well hard enough.
They were held down, the twisting fingers tightening around them. How long does this fucking last? Zack wanted to scream his frustration at the developers but he dared not open his mouth and let the sludge in.
After what felt like an eternity, the fingers withdrew and they were able to surface. Gasping in air, Zack wiped the sludge from his face so he could see again. The boss’s arms slowly drew back into its body, buying Zack precious seconds to recover from the vicious attack.
Amy used the time to haul herself back onto the rock. Betsy helped get Amy to her feet, then they both resumed attacking the boss.
The Blighted Ent finally started its attacks again, lashing Zack one way than the other. Zack was at around 60% health so decided against using his Shield of Stone defensive buff. Instead, he used his shield’s special Revenge of the Dead ability and let the spectral arms do their thing.
The boss’s attacks slowly took their toll on his health, so Zack slipped in another health potion as soon as it came off coodown, saving Missy some Inspiration.
The boss lifted both its arms over its head. This time, Zack dived to the side, slipping under the surface. A great swoosh sounded, and the liquid sloshed around him.
The massive overhead attack was avoidable.
He quickly got to his feet and found the boss still bent over, its arms under the surface, as if he was being held down there like last time. So, even if the tank managed to dodge the attack the boss went through its normal attack animations.
That bought them a good twenty seconds to do as much damage as they could.
Anita and Betsy were already going nuts with their high-damage abilities while Amy held back a bit as her mana was low and she had already used a Mana Potion and had forty seconds remaining on the cool down.
Zack charged in and used Devastate to up the women’s DPS then smashed the boss with Shield Slam, Devastate, Sweeping Arc and then Demon Strike.
Watching all the pretty numbers in his Combat Log, Zack was impressed with the amount of damage his harem was putting out. All of them were A grade DPS!
Amy got in a massive critical hit with a Frostbolt.
Companion inflicted 322 damage
Impressive, Zack thought. She’s a real go getter!
Empowered by her nasty damage, Amy’s little dragon companion became twice as large and its rate of fire from its mouth increased. The buff would not last long, but the scaly little fella would put of almost twice the DPS for thirty seconds.
Zack was in awe of his harem. Most DPS noobs out in greater Aralia Online would only dream of being able to put out damage like this. Their e-peen would wither if they saw the women now!
The Blighted Ent grunted, its health starting to dwindle. It rose out of the murk and resumed its attacks.
Zack continued to weather them as he watched its health rapidly heading toward zero.
The boss wouldn’t last much longer… unless it had something crazy up its slimy, dripping sleeve.
At 5% health, the mouth formed again.
Oh, for fuck sake. Just die!
“You must join me. All of you.”
A tremor ran through the ground, then the sludge’s surface quivered. A few moments later, Zack started to be sucked toward the center of the chamber where a whirlpool had formed.
Suddenly, all the woman were pulled into the sludge, as if by an invisible hand. Like Zack, they struggled against the current, Anita and Betsy still trying to maintain their attacks on the boss.
The Blighted Ent stopped attacking Zack and instead grew more of its limbs and reached out and encircling its root fingers around all of them. “Drown with me, let me feel the life sucked out of your thrashing bodies as my toxic sludge fills your lungs.”
It started to carry them toward the heart of the whirlpool that was sucking everything down inside it. Zack’s heart skipped a beat. The boss was going to drag all of them down into the murk and hold them until they drowned.
“Keep attacking. Use everything you’ve got. Burn it down.” Zack no longer cared about his shield. He drank a Restoration Potion, then used Demon Strike, then Criss Cross, then Sweeping Arc.
Anita and Betsy’s blades were a blur as both women unleashed everything they had.
Amy screamed in ecstasy, her fingers and wand pointed at the back of Blighted Ent’s head, a torrent of frost spells blasting it, sending chips of ice in all directions. Even her little dragon seemed to be enjoying itself, its wings flapping, its little teeth bared its eyes shining.
Missy played her guitar, her fingers moving quickly over the strings. She didn’t look happy. She’d had a hell of a time keeping them all alive.
That was the way of MMO games. The DPS had all the fun and the tanks and healers did the hard, unforgiving work.
When the boss neared the center of the whirlpool, its body suddenly dissolved, leaving only its thin, stick body behind. “No, the drowned ones will drag me down with them. Please…”
The stick figure dropped them and they fell into the murk, no longer carried away by the current, unlike the Blighted Ent that was sucked into the maelstrom.
Black hands formed from the sludge and grabbed hold of the boss, then they dragged it down into the eye of the whirlpool. Zack’s blood went cold at the scream that followed.
BLIGHTED ENT HAS BEEN VANQUISHED!!!
THE DROWNED ONES WILL NOW REST IN PEACE!
Long Lost Crown of the Princess
A shining silver crown, once worn by a beautiful princess of Vanamoor who was lost in the wilds long ago. Now her far flung decedent can bask in its glory!
+1 Intellect
+3 Dexterity
+3 Spirit
+20 Inspiration
Physical Damage reduction 2%
Magical Damage Reduction 7%
Blighted Ent trophy Head added to Inventory
(Place this on your wall of your player house as a celebration of your victory!)
Then the sludge simply disappeared. The pool was gone and the stuff clinging to the walls went with it. Their skin was instantly cleaned too.
Zack took a steadying breath, glancing around at the ordinary looking chamber they stood in. Somehow, they had survived.
Amy leapt into his arms and kissed him. “Can we do that again?”
Chapter Forty-Five
Symbol
Zack made sure all the women were fine before he handed Missy her new silver crown. She continued to play her healing songs, restoring their health but she still found a moment to kiss his cheek. “It looks wonderful, a glimmer of light in the darkness that was this place. I shall ever remember my distant royal sister as I wear it.”
He hugged her. “Thank you for keeping us all alive. That was a high damage fight and you kept your head.”
She smiled at his praise. “I sing, I strum and make pretty colors float through the air. The healing is me sharing my love for all of you.”
Anita moved away from them, then stopped at the hole in the center of the chamber where the Blighted Ent had been sucked into. “There’s something down there. Looks like a metal hatch.”
Intrigued, Zack
walked over to look, Amy and Betsy beside him. There was indeed a hatch down there. He’d expected a hole filled with black sludge.
But a game was a game, he reckoned. All the black sludge had simply despawned, as if it never existed.
“You want me to get down there and try to open it?” Anita asked. “It doesn’t look like there is another way out of here.”
Zack fought the urge to do it himself. She was just as capable of it as he was. “Go ahead.”
He watched her climb down and stand on top of the hatch and struggled to turn the handle. He heard her grunt as she put her full weight behind each rotation. There wasn’t the room for two people down there, so all he could do was watch.
Amy pressed up against Zack as they watched Anita. “I hope there’s lots of loot in there. After a fight like that, all I want to do is get new stuff then wrap my legs around you and have the ride of my life.”
“If there’s still time after we get back to the palace, trust me, we are all going to have some fun.”
She grinned. “Oh, I’m totally going to sit on Anita’s face. Probably the only way we’ll get her to shut up.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Anita said, puffing from trying to get the hatch open.
Amy looked down at her. “I’m too lazy to fuck myself. That’s what you and Zack are for.”
Zack tried not to laugh but he couldn’t stop himself. Even Missy and Betsy chuckled at that one.
A cloud of escaping air shot up from below. Anita swore loudly, then said, “Got it.”
She started to descend the ladder. Zack leapt down and landed on the edge of the hatch. He looked up at the three women peering down at him. “Stay there until I call you. We don’t know what’s in here.”
Amy pretended to yawn. “Don’t be too long or I might get bored and wander off and try to find some stuff to kill.”
Betsy grabbed her. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t do anything silly while you’re gone.”
Zack shook his head then started down the ladder. Twenty rungs later, he was at the bottom.
A light came on, blinding him for a second. When he could see, he found Anita standing across from him. “The lights work.” She flicked another switch and air started to pump into the room. “Looks like a survival shelter or something.”
“Yeah, I reckon.” He scanned the shelves of equipment and food supplies. “This looks like it is modeled on real world stuff.”
Aralia Online was a fantasy game with the normal fantasy conventions (except no elves and dwarves!). Why would the developers make a vault that looked like a nuclear and biological survival shelter from the time before the Oligarchy took power?
Zack saw a symbol on the wall and stopped dead. The symbol was a snake eating its tail. He’d seen it before, as it had been around forever.
His mother had that exact symbol on her stomach.
Around the time when she had changed their names, she’d had a black market artist tattoo it onto her. To his mother, it had symbolized humanity’s eternal struggle to be free.
Why did you make me have to kill you, mom?
“I think the resistance added this to the game,” Zack said. “This is the armory we came here to find.”
Anita scanned the shelves. “I don’t see any weapons. I was hoping we’d find guns or something.”
“Guns? That would be a bit too obvious. The developers would have cracked right down on that. Besides, how would the damage work? What classes could use them?”
She huffed. “Fucking men. Stop thinking so much and let’s find those items that man said would be here.”
“Right.” Zack continued through the shelves, searching them for anything out of the ordinary that could be what they were looking for. Out of interest, he tried to bring up the item information of a can of beans and oddly, it came up with nothing.
Glorified set dressing. The lot of it.
He moved onto the next shelf and the one after that. Still nothing.
Then he saw a chest with a golden halo around it. “I think I found it.”
Anita hurried over to him. “Looks gamey enough.”
He knelt down, searched the chest for any indications of traps and seeing none, went to throw open the lid. The damn thing was heavy. “A little help here.”
She came over and together, they managed to open the lid. Instantly, two items appeared in his Inventory. Normally, he had to pick them up first but these weren’t ordinary items made by the developers.
Zack brought up the information of the first and saw the standard game window giving him the item details.
Containment Core
Cordons off a chosen area, preventing anyone from escaping.
One use remaining
The next item was the Control Blocker, the one that would stop the Janitor taking control of Amy, Missy and Betsy. Excitement flooded him. If these worked like they said they did…
He didn’t even know what he would do once the Janitor was dead. After checking around for anything else that might be of use and finding nothing, Zack smiled wistfully. “I think we’re done here.”
Anita came and stood before him. “We still have a day and a half left on the timer too.”
He grinned. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That we go find another group of rich kids playing at being warriors and slaughter them all?”
“No, I was thinking something a little sexier than that.” He ran his eyes up her plate bikini, lingering on her armored breasts.
Her lips twisted into a smile. “Men and their one track minds. Can we get back to the palace first?”
Zack chuckled. “I’m not sure what you were thinking, but I only wanted to have a nice relaxing bath and then take a nice nap.”
“Yeah, sure you were.”
Chapter Forty-Six
All Together
Propped up with pillows behind him, Zack watched his naked harem crawl toward him from the edge of the bed. Anita walked naked behind them, her muscled, perfectly proportioned orc goddess body glistening with oil.
She had herded the other three women from the bathroom like a shepherd with a flock of sheep. Except these sheep were all beautiful women, their smiling faces looking up at him, their hair hanging down around them, their breasts firm and waiting for him to fondle them.
I embrace my petty toxic masculinity, he thought to himself as he motioned the women forward.
Zack lay back and let them crawl up to him. They started kissing his feet, slowly working their way up his body and to his face. Each of the women took turns kissing Zack as Anita took a seat next to him and watched her NPC sisters at work.
Zack held Betsy back a moment as she tried to shove her tongue in his mouth. “Why don’t you give in and join them?” He asked Anita.
Her eyes widened. “I don’t do submissive seductress.”
Amy glanced around at her. “You think I’m submissive?” She grabbed Anita and dragged her over. “Lay down beside him. I’ll show you submissive.”
After a moment, Anita obeyed. Amy touched Zack on the cheek. “Watch this.” She leapt on top of Anita, putting the orc woman’s face between her legs. “Shut up and start enjoying yourself for once, woman. Once I am done with you, you’ll be nice, soft and juicy for Zack!”
Anita’s reply was a muffled pleasure filled moan.
Zack closed his eyes as Betsy put her soft, sweet lips to his and curled her fingers around his hair. He reached over and slipped his index finger inside Missy and started gently rubbing her pleasure spot. She gripped his hand, stroking it back and forth, moaning in delight.
With his other hand, he clasped Betsy’s firm backside, pulling her pelvis against his, silently telling her he wanted to be inside her. She shuffled around, then reached back and eased him in, her mouth never leaving his.
She made love to him, his length sliding in and out of her wetness. It didn’t take her long to lift her face from his, her eyes rolling back in her head as she gushed her love all o
ver him. Then she collapsed forward, breathing hard. “I missed you so much.”
With one arm, he held her tight. “I missed you too. But let’s not think about what happened, not now.” They held one another, his right hand still pleasuring Missy.
Betsy finally could move and kissed his nose. “I’ll want more of you once the others have had their share. Being locked in the darkness all that time was so lonely.”
Zack forced a smile, trying not to think of what she went through so as not to spoil the moment. He kissed her nose in return. “There’s plenty of me to go around.”
As Missy climbed onto him, slipping him into her wet sweetness, he glanced up at Amy. She had her eyes closed, lips slightly parted, her cheeks flushed. Anita had clearly given herself over to pleasuring Amy, as one hand was wrapped around Amy’s arm, gently rocking her back and forth while her other hand was rubbing between her own legs.
Missy turned Zack’s face so he looked up at her instead. “My sweet song,” she whispered, her voice filled with lust. “We are altogether now, sharing our love, finding pleasure in one another’s bodies, our souls entwined as one.” Her whole body quivered. “My heart flutters with joy.”
Betsy reached up and ran her fingers over Missy’s face. “I love you, sister.”
Closing her eyes, Missy let Zack grab her love handles and lift her up and down on his member. He watched her breasts rise and fall, the look of utter contentment on her beautiful face.
She dug her nails into his chest as he worked her up to near orgasm, her mouth slightly parted, small gasps escaping her lips. Then she turned up to the ceiling and cried out in ecstasy.
“My turn now,” Amy said, still on Anita’s face. “But I want to make it fun.” She lifted herself off Anita and came over to him as Missy hopped off and snuggled up behind Betsy.
Raid Slayer 2 Page 24
