by P A Wikoff
“Moogi! (Po has been violently slain by the Wooden Knight Ambrose! Po has left the party.)”
“I know. I know!”
MacGavin didn’t waste any time. He combined both his arms into a huge anvil, which grew to twice his body size. Taking my suggestion, he smashed Ambrose’s toe for a massive critical hit.
The whole area shook as Ambrose let out a mighty cry. This activated another charging thrust with the tree lance.
Out of stamina, Mac had no means to flee. He just stood face to face with death and smiled at its arrival.
“Tuuuuuub,” MacGavin yelled backwards. And just like that, MacGavin was obliterated from this world, just like Po had been.
“Moogi. (MacGavin has been…)
“Turn off chat notifications. I need to concentrate,” I interrupted the message.
It was just me and that epic giant now.
The boss’s hit points were ticking away, but not nearly as fast as I wanted. At this rate, I might die of old age before my DOT killed him.
Fixated on his routine, I sidestepped, rolled, and kept my distance.
He wasn’t hurting me, but I wasn’t making any huge strides on him either. I was waiting for the charge attack with the lance, but he wasn’t doing it for some reason.
After dancing around with him awhile, my weapon’s bleed effect eventually wore off, and he started to heal again.
“This is bad, Moogi. We have to hit him.”
Moogi waved its paw, urging me to be brave.
Weaving past both his greatsword and tree lance attacks, I unleashed my full stamina bar worth of attacks on his toe. My bleed effect was reactivated, and we were back in business.
Without a tank to distract him, I was forced to try and hide underneath him.
To counter this, Ambrose started to fall over like a giant tree. It was the same move he had crushed me with the first time we faced off. The range of this attack was huge. There was no way for me to avoid it. All of my gear was going to be squished if I didn’t do something right now.
I reached for my potion, but I had forgotten that I threw it to Po—unsuccessfully, I might add. Using all my force and pushing my stamina into the negative, I hurled the Blood Dagger as far as I possibly could as he covered me with his massive body.
“Moogi. (You have been crushed by The Wooden Knight Ambrose. Your party has been disbanded.)”
***
“My debt to you is complete,” a female voice said.
I was back at the temple, still reeling from the crushing blow. This time it had given me a ringing headache.
“Hi, Erilyn,” I said somberly.
“Where did your pants go?”
“I looked down, and sure enough, Ambrose had destroyed half of the earwig armored leggings I had stolen from Tag. They only protected my left leg now.
“Welp, a deal is a deal, and next time, you owe me my full rate,” she said with a wink.
“I know.” Abruptly, I looked at my arm. I still had all my experience, and surprisingly, Camber’s dream blessing that negated any resurrection fatigue.
I stretched, and my bones made popping and snapping sounds. “Did you resurrect anyone else before me?”
“That is my job.”
“I know. I mean, did you happen to bring back MacGavin or Po?”
“Nope, neither of those. I did bring back a grumpus named Xander a bit ago.”
“Oh, no!”
“A friend of yours?”
“Quite the opposite.”
I had to get back there, and fast. Frantically, I started to unequip all my armor and tossed each piece at her feet.
“What, no dance first?”
“I’m sorry. I got to go. Can you watch over this for me?”
“I’m not a storage bank.”
“Then keep it. I don’t care. I will just lose it anyway.”
“All right, fine,” Erilyn said with a sigh.
Was she going to help me or keep my stuff? I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t have time to dwell on it.
I had to get my weapon back before GDF planned on raiding the Wooden Knight Ambrose or Xander stumbled upon it. Xander was more of a concern because he knew what we were up to and where.
Our party failed, and I couldn’t afford to waste time trying to band up again, not when it would increase the spawn rate in the Twisted Forest and slow me down.
What I needed was a plan, but I was much too anxious to think of anything clever. If only I could hit pause for a moment.
Then I realized that I could do just that.
As annoyed as Erilyn seemed with me, she suddenly had some interest in the boots I got off of Sally when I added them to the pile.
“Where did you get these from?” she asked, but I had already started to summon a portal and couldn’t answer her while focusing. My portal appeared with its destination set to the training room inside the tree. It used up a ton of mana, but it was the key to everything…
***
I found the bearded trainer awaiting me, as if he was expecting my visit, even though this time I had appeared through a dimensional rift.
I waved off the pleasantries and placed his hand on my shoulder, to expedite the process. Right away, he started to bleed out my experiences like before. And just like that, I was back in my upgrade garden with one advancement point to spend.
With my heart still racing, I took a couple of deep breaths and allowed myself to relax.
My idea had worked. Only, this was the extent of it. Time was void here, and I knew that if I rushed back into the boss room without a solid plan, I was only going to lose everything I had worked so hard to achieve. So, I came here to think and ponder my options. Plus, my mind worked better in this place for some reason. It was like a cloudiness was lifted. I hoped that I might get inspired somehow, but nothing was immediately jumping out at me.
I noticed that the metal branch was severed off the equipment skill tree from where the Blood Dagger once was.
“What to do?” I paced back and forth, weighing my options and what I had at my disposal. Each time I approached the practice dummy, I gave it a punch, then did an about-face turn and went the other way.
“I need to get the dagger back without losing it for good. That means I need to defeat Ambrose, because the room locks. Unless…I could set up a portal out of there. No, the casting time is much too long. He would destroy me. Unless I distracted him somehow.”
Having only one advancement point to spend, I started looking through each skill tree, starting with the racial one. I had to pay close attention to see if there was anything I had overlooked. I spent some time going through all the gods this time around. While their lore was interesting and cool, without time to establish a relationship with my deity of choice, I couldn’t benefit from their blessings or curses.
After completely going through the human tree with a fine-toothed comb, I went over to the summoning tree and did the same, starting with the Item Summoning branch and on from there.
“None of this stuff is going to work,” I said in frustration.
Every skill was useful, in one way or another, but not completely for my predicament. For example, I could unlock the ability to summon a monster tank to distract Ambrose, but then I wouldn’t have enough mana to summon a portal to escape out of. If only I had two advancement points, then I would have tons of solutions.
Eventually I got to the Chaos Summoning branch of the summoning skill tree. To my surprise, there was something new there. On the second tier, there were three new paths to choose from that must have been unlocked after I got my Portal skill.
The first was Friendship, which gave the ability to summon a friend to your location. That might work, if I had enough mana to summon both Po and MacGavin back to the boss room, though I hadn’t heard a peep out of either of them. I couldn’t help but think that they might be mad at me if Ambrose had destroyed some of their expensive gear that Camber helped them bring to the fight.
The next skill that I could get was
On the Go, which reduced casting time by 25% for all summons. It could be leveled up four times, for a total of 100% reduction. This could be perfect. The only problem was that I didn’t have four points to spend. If I could upgrade it twice, that would at least be something. Unfortunately, I only had one AP, and a 25% reduction wasn’t going to cut it down enough for me to make an escape portal.
The third and final skill was Free Casting. It stated that I could cast one spell or use one skill for zero mana cost. That was a powerful gimmie. The catch was that I could only use Free Casting once per day or once per life, depending on which cooldown I chose. Even though the once-a-day or life part was not appealing, I may only need it once. In theory, I could cast a free portal and have enough mana to make an exit portal. But then there was still the problem of the long casting time.
Free Casting was looking like it had potential, not in the long run, but for my current situation. Still, I wasn’t feeling very confident about it.
“Think, damn you, think. Find a loophole, some flaw in the system, anything to make this more enticing.”
I thought about how Bagmy abused the naming mechanic and made himself a monster costume in order to trick new players into attacking him, all so that he could PVP and avoid ruining his reputation; how Tag had used his high Speed stat to keep the trainer’s door shut by closing it faster than I could open it. These were all ways that other players abused the system to get ahead at others’ expense.
There had to be something I could do.
Sitting on the golden floor, I moved into a crossed-legged position and started to meditate.
Deep in my mind, I went through every moment I had experienced in this world—every kill, every death, every detail. I felt like the trainer—feeling real emotions as I lived through it again. Some were happy moments, others sad or frustrating.
Then one thing in particular stood out of place. An error.
“No. That’s too easy. Would it work? It has to.”
It was my only shot, and I had to take it. Before I could change my mind, I made my selection.
“You have assigned one advancement point to Free Casting. Please select a cooldown: Once per day, or once per life,” the room voice alerted me.
“Life,” I said.
“Once per life cycle, you can use a skill for zero mana cost. All other choices are no longer available to you.”
A new branch grew out of my blue summoning tree, sprouting the Free Casting skill icon off of it. It vaguely resembled a broken chain. I looked down at my arm, and a corresponding icon was being drawn on me as well.
This was a long shot, but it was my only shot. I had to at least try and take it.
In the blink of an eye, I was standing in front of the trainer and an eager-looking Moogi.
My stats were full again, like they always were after leveling up.
Time was a key element in my plan, and I couldn’t afford to waste even a single second of it. First, I activated my new Free Casting skill. At the same time, I hit the summon potion tattoo.
Moogi now looked confused.
Sure enough, I had a potion in hand without spending a single point of mana.
With Free Casting, I could summon both a potion and a portal, without having to rely on the fifteen mana points I’d get back after drinking the potion.
Then I wanted to summon a portal directly into the boss room.
“Moogi. (That is not a valid target.)”
“Okay, how about this?” I closed my eyes and pointed to the room just before the boss room on the map.
Sure enough, a portal started to form right in front of me.
Once the casting was complete, I glanced over at my EXP. “468/2400. That should be enough,” I said, jumping through the portal with great determination.
Without armor or a weapon, I was back at the entrance to the boss room. One earwig had already spawned and came right at me. Making my decision, I ignored it and rushed into the boss room.
Even though it felt like an hour or more had passed since I was here last, in reality it had been only a couple of minutes.
Ambrose was still raging in his second stage of combat. Lodged inside his wooden armor were dozens of weapons from fallen players—axes, swords, lances, arrows… That, along with his weapon-smashing ability, it’s no wonder why Erilyn called him the weapon stealer.
“Moogi? (What are you doing?)
“I don’t have time to explain.”
Just then, Ambrose thrusted his huge lance towards me. I slid through the rubbish on the ground, narrowly escaping getting skewered.
That attack was new, and I didn’t like it one bit. I had to keep close to him, but not too close so that he would fall on me again.
Hand over hand, Ambrose pulled his lance back to him by the chain that was still attached to it and him.
Off in the distance, I spotted the glimmer of a red jewel. “Thank Balrok it’s still here.”
Pumping my arms, I ran with all that I had in me. I was much lighter on my feet while not wearing any armor. Getting back to the general area where I had died, I reunited myself with the Blood Dagger.
“So far, so good,” I said to myself.
I wasn’t the only one who had their weapon back. Ambrose came at me with a double chop from his greatsword. During his attacks, it was best to just get out of the way.
At a safe distance, but not too safe, I managed to find pieces of my body and subsequently locate the two blood splats that were MacGavin and Po. However, something was missing. There were a lot of factors in my plan and a single one going awry meant total failure.
“Where is it?”
Moogi was helping me look around, even though I forgot to tell it what I was looking for.
“The potion should be here. It has to be here.”
Moogi pointed its paw at my back.
Momentarily excited, I turned around, thinking it had found something. Unfortunately, it was just pointing to where my inventory went.
“Not that potion. The one from before. The one I threw at Po.”
We both kept searching in between the boss’s sweeping strikes.
It was gone. It must have disappeared after I died.
My whole plan was based on the contingency that the potion would be still here.
“Fack!” I kicked some debris in frustration.
Was it possible that I had made a huge mistake? While trying to cheat the system, had I cheated myself out of another life?
“No, It’s not over yet.” Something was off. What had I overlooked? Why wasn’t this working?
Trying to come up with a solution, I danced around with Ambrose, avoiding his attacks.
Suddenly, I got a hunch. The potion I threw at Po was full. That might have been the problem. I had to try.
Running back towards the edge of the battlefield, I waited for him to throw the lance again, like it was a spear.
When it came, I moved out of the way and took a tiny sip of the potion. Then I carefully placed it on the ground and went back into the fight.
By the time I reached Ambrose again, he had already reclaimed his lance.
What I was really waiting for was his triple succession attack with both his greatsword and lance. Sword, lance, sword, in that order.
After playing cat and mouse for a couple of minutes, he finally did it.
I ducked under the first wide swing, stabbing him on the upswing.
Damn, it didn’t cause bleed.
I rolled to the left, nearly getting hit by the lance attack. This time I thrust down on his knuckle, and again, no bleed.
Double damn. I was getting bad rolls here. Seventy percent chance to proc bleed wasn’t always every other time.
Then Ambrose ramped up for his final sword chop. I knew what I had to do. I stabbed him two more times, depleting the rest of my stamina bar. This left me no room to avoid his final hit.
“Moogi. (Two damage. Six damage. The Wooden Knight Ambrose is bleeding.)
That
was what I wanted to hear.
Embracing my demise, I let the Blood Dagger slip out of my fingers, and Ambrose chopped me directly in half.
“Moogi? (You have been… Wait, what are you up to?)”
“No time,” I said, now back inside the temple.
“That was way too quick,” Erilyn said.
This was the first time I had seen her genuinely taken aback to see me.
Slipping off of her slab, I threw up all over the ground, sporting a new scar on my face.
“Gross,” Erilyn said.
“I’ll clean it up later. Just get ready to bring me back again, okay?”
“What?” she asked.
“Okay?”
“I suppose, but it will cost you.”
“I don’t care.”
Just like last time, I started Free Casting my potion. Immediately after, I summoned another portal to get me near the boss room. Within seconds, I was back there sparring with the brute.
“Yes. I knew it!” I said, making my way to the edge of the battlefield.
“Moogi. (This is pointless. The boss gained 1% life from last time, even with your bleed effect.)”
“No, it isn’t,” I said, avoiding a lance throw. After taking a small sip of my potion, I tossed it next to the one I had made last time around.
Moogi’s face changed from pity to utter amazement.
This was the glitch I had found. My summoned potions didn’t go away if they were partially used. That, combined with Camber’s blessing that stopped me from getting resurrection fatigue, made a perfect plan—stockpiling potions.
Every second, the boss would slowly gain back more hit points. This time I fought him long enough to re-up my bleed effect and die.
Back at the temple, I looked at my arm—117 EXP left. I noticed that Erilyn had resurrected me on a different, clearer slab this time around.
“Don’t ask. See you soon,” I said to Erilyn and continued onward to the next run.
Over and over, I went in and did my little routine, getting faster with each death. Only, each death was making me feel worse and worse. Finally, Ambrose had only gained 3% life, and I had just summoned my ninth potion.
“Erilyn…please accept my quest,” I pleaded with her, tapping my arm.
