The graveyard was odd, and, as we continued through it, the setup only became more strange. Tombstones started rendering sticking out sideways out from walls, rendered at head height.
“Ouch,” said Argyle, bumping into one. “This is getting ridiculous. Are you sure your fairy friend can't do anything about this?”
“Yeah, he's tried. Apparently only human admins can fix it.”
“Well, that's not entirely true. I have the privileges to fix it, I just would never get assigned that role, and besides, look how amazing it is! The objects are wearing each other as hats! Brilliant!”
“Whatever,” I said. “If you would never get assigned to the role, then what does it matter if you have the privileges or not?”
“Well, you know, it's just a little difference. I could flag this, report the area, and the generation AI would have to completely re-generate it. Probably a bad thing while you're inside of it, though. It would kind of get a little messy.”
“Messy? How messy? Like, we'd see things we shouldn't messy, or it would make us go splat messy?”
“Messy as in high-velocity tombstones rearranging themselves with the speed of a bullet train and the ferocity of a meat grinder messy.”
“Yeah, let's not do that.”
“I thought you wouldn't want it, but I could have it re-generate when we're done here. Maybe.”
“What the heck is going on there?” Argyle asked, pointing ahead at two graves next to each other, but overlapping. Two hands covered in rotting flesh punched through the soil in unison. Two heads emerged followed by two torsos. The thing was, there wasn’t really space for both torsos, and where they intersected they kind of stuck together. At first the forms shifted around and pulled against each other.
“It's that collision detection error your fairy talked about. Just look at these guys. One's riding on the other’s shoulders.”
When the creature fully emerged from the graves, it seemed like the weight of one zombie body was forcing the other on all fours. “It's almost like a zombie centaur or something like that, but with a person on the bottom, and then another on top.”
“Yeah, you're right. Like some sort of zombie man-taur,” said Argyle. “I wonder if they can coordinate? Like, how do they move? Are they one creature, or did they fight each other? If they are separate, you'd need the one on the bottom to walk around on all fours and the one on the top could attack with its arms. It'd be perfect.”
The word “perfect” seemed to stretch out. For a moment I felt like I was going back into the time freeze.
With abrupt sharpness, the system spoke as it usually did. At the same time, words appeared in my vision. Only this time, for some reason, the voice reading the text sounded like Fez. “Congratulations. You have discovered a new type of creature. By melding together the flesh of two Zombies, this new horrific monstrosity is more ferocious and atrocious than the original. For discovering a new species, you have been awarded the privilege of naming it.”
I looked at Argyle and he looked at me. “New species. What should we name it?”
“Something like mantaur,”
“That's a dumb name. Who would ever come up with a name like that?”
“Zombietaur?” Argyle suggested.
“That's also dumb. Maybe it should be something like a flesh horror, or something like that.”
“No, I like Zombietaur! The new name of this creature is Zombietaur,” yelled Argyle looking up at the sky.
“New name 'Zombietaur' accepted. Achievement unlocked: ‘What's in a Name’. You may display title ‘What's in a Name’ as your title and gain 20% additional experience when discovering new species. Note: you may only have one title active at a time.”
With this new text, the computer seemed as if it had gone back to its usual bland, feminine persona.
“That was weird,” said Argyle as he directed his wombat forward. “Why did the computers voice change like that? And why did it go back?”
“Oh, that was just Fez,” I explained, hefting my hammer. “He was probably just temporarily assigned admin duties. In order to fix…” and I gestured at the newly named Zombietaur that was trying desperately to walk without falling over. “Probably trying to resolve this before it broke the game.”
“Wait, the game can break?”
“Yeah, it happens.” I explained about the time I was frozen, and how Fez had to step in to unfreeze me. As we talked, the Zombietaur seemed to be getting more sure of itself. The upper-torso found a better balance and it charged at us.
Argyle dove out of the way. “How did you get admin as a familiar?”
I jumped back and swung with my hammer. I connected with the Zombietaur right where the top torso met the bottom. “That came later. He used his admin privileges to be assigned as my familiar once I selected it.”
The undead abomination fell to the ground and Argyle and his summon dove onto it. “Interesting. If he can be an admin, why did he decide to become a fairy?”
“As a point of fact, I didn’t. That was all Finch here.” Fez appeared out of nowhere and began healing the downed Zombietaur.
“Do we have you to thank for these new creatures?” I asked Fez.
“No, they are a simulacrum. I just prevented them from crashing the game.” One final shower of healing glitter finished off the Zombietaur.
“Level up! You are now level 13.”
“What’s a sima-lick-um?” asked Argyle, confused.
“A simulacrum is a copy, but a bad copy that isn’t quite what it’s supposed to be. It happens sometimes in data migrations or when combining software. In this case, two copies made one big logic error. No worries though; I resolved the error. Actually, you two gave me the idea with that name.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I just told the system to treat the creature like a reskin of an existing creature. In this case, a centaur. I don’t think I would have come up with something so ridiculous without you meat bags.”
“What if the next one looks nothing like a centaur?”
“Way ahead of you. I just created a simple script to search the database for the closest match and copy its stats and movement animations.”
“So, what if the closest match is way too high level for this area?” I asked.
“Oh, no worries. Eventually the game balance AI will adjust it's stats to match the area. It should only take 20 or 30 combats to get it right.”
“Does this mean we're looking at another Jackalope situation?”
“No, of course not. If we find one that's way too powerful, all you have to do is die 20 times or so and it will readjust. That's way easier than the last time.”
“I vote not on dying 20 times,” said Argyle.
“I guess we'll just have to be extra careful if the game creates something new. If there's something we can't handle, we don't have to come back here.”
“I like this plan,” said Argyle. “I’m gonna display the new title just in case.”
“That's not a terrible idea.” We both equipped the title of ‘What's in a Name’ and continued on.
As we continued through the graveyard, eventually we came to a clearing with a fountain in the middle. It was nothing particularly ornate or ostentatious; basically a three-tiered birdbath. Only, it was glowing ominously pink. As we got closer, the words 'Health Shrine' appeared above it with an ad watch icon next to it.
“Let me guess. We activate the shrine, watch an ad, and get healed to full?”
“That's pretty much it, boss,” said my fairy companion, floating towards the shrine.
“Well, with your healing, I'm already mostly back to full. How about you, Argyle?”
“Nah, bro. I'm good. 90% Health.”
“All right, well, unless something major happens, we could probably just ignore this.”
It was about that time I heard the clattering behind me. “You just had to say it, didn't you?” Argyle snarled.
“What did I say? What did I say?”
“You said we probably wouldn't need it.” We both turned around to see several Zombietaurs crawling out of overlapping graves behind us.
“Split up,” I yelled, dashing to one side. Argyle dashed the other way, summoning one of his wombats.
Fez, for his part, just floated above us with a pensive look on his face as the miniatures started to charge towards us. “What are you waiting for? Heal them to death,” I yelled at Fez.
“Yeah, but with this many of them, how do I know which one to heal first?”
“Just pick one,” I growled.
“Geez, okay, you don't have to yell. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a bowler by the bow.”
I didn't have any time to waste telling my fairy how to do his job. Two of them were already bearing down on me, charging at breakneck speed.
I tried to imagine them as golf balls rolling towards me and swinging. Unfortunately, in the panic of the moment, I wasn't able to come up with a sufficiently strong mental image. Instead of me knocking one of them away Somehow, both of them came crashing into me.
“You have been hit by a Zombietaur for 45 damage. You have been hit by a Zombietaur for 51 damage.”
“Ouch, that hurt.” They kept charging, which meant they were already dozens of feet away in seconds. Well out of reach. In no time at all, they had turned around and were once again charging my way. I had to think. I had to focus. They were on the ground, rolling out in front of me like golf balls. Just think golf balls.
For the second time, I failed to connect and was treated to another round of injuries. “You have been hit by Zombietaur for 41 damage. You have been hit by Zombietaur for 48 damage.” Just like that my Health was down below 10%. Fez was too busy using his healing power on the enemy to heal me before the next attack came.
I lunged for the fountain. The world around me slowed and paused. The Zombietaurs were still charging at me, their bone-white fists raised for the attack. I felt like dodging out of the way, but at the same time I was glued to the spot. Like my feet had decided to stop taking input from my brain and instead just held me steady for a moment.
A tall man wearing flannel with an amazing topiary of a bear appeared in front of me. “Do you ever camp, but worry you don't have enough tools?” He pulled out something that looked like an ax, or maybe more accurately some bizarre hatchet-swiss army knife combo.
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“Come on, come on. Get it over with. You're interrupting my fight.”
“This is the Master Ax Tool 569. It's what real men take camping.” Over the next three seconds he proceeded to chop a log in half, gut a fish, and cut off an inch of his perfectly sculpted beard. Somehow, this made him look even more 'lumberjack' handsome.
“That's not all I could do.” He pulled the cap off the end to reveal a massive corkscrew. He then proceeded to bore four holes in a log and fashion it into a bench in seconds.
“I get it, it does everything under the sun. Can you please just shut up so I can get back to combat?”
“It's the only tool a real man survivalist will ever need.” He twisted the center of the shaft which came apart into two places, to reveal a long cord. He jammed the corkscrew in the handle into the ground in front of me. A tree appeared next to him and he drove the blade of the hatchet into the side of the tree. He then took a tarp and threw it over the line to create a makeshift tent.
That's when I realized I needed the ax. My feet had been affected by this ad, but the rest of me hadn’t. I reached down and grabbed the corkscrew ax handle out of the ground. I immediately dropped it into my inventory before the ad could come to an end.
By the time it ended, I had a plan. The next time the stampeding zombies rushed me, I rolled to one side, just out of reach. Once my attackers had turned around and started back towards me I left to one side and pulled the Ax’s cord tight.
The two Zombietaurs crashed right into my hastily constructed trip line and fell to the ground, a tangle of arms, legs and torso's. I quickly dropped the ax and pulled out my hammer. I know that they were mostly still and on the ground. I knew exactly what to do. First one and then the other were launched high over the surrounding tombstones to smash into the side of a monolith standing dozens of feet away. “You have killed Zombietaur. You have killed Zombietaur . Level up! You are now level 14.”
I looked around and realized Argyle was leaning up against the Health Shrine. “That was way too close!” He panted.
“That was awesome!”
“If it wasn't for Fez, I would've been trampled to death.”
“You’re welcome for that,” interjected Fez, sitting on the fountain.
“Hell, even with Fez I wouldn’t have made it without the shrine. Bro, something is wrong here.”
“That means we're right on the edge. Those kinds of battles always give the best experience and loot. Hell, I just leveled up.”
“I don't know, bro, things are getting weird here. If this keeps up, I don't know how we're gonna face things, and besides, it looks like the game generation went completely off the rails. I mean, it's awesome, but also it doesn't seem like anything here is balanced for the level.”
“What? We're the first people seeing this. We're the first people seeing any of this, isn't that exciting? Like, not only do we get to explore crazy environments like this, but we get to be the first ones. How cool is that?” Had I been in my right mind I probably would have realized I was coming off a bit manic, but Argyle seemed to be coming around to my way of thinking.
“I mean, you're right bro, it is pretty awesome. Also look what I looted.”He held up two translucent milky white gems with odd greenish imperfections.
“Zombie Eye, Crafting Item. Use in crafting to imbue undeath, dark, or regeneration aspects.”
“I bet you, with those we could make something pretty amazing. Your sister's surgery is as good as paid for.”
“I mean, the loot is pretty good, and I think I'm pretty close to leveling up too. Okay, we can keep going, but please let's be a bit more careful.”
“Sure thing. Now let’s see what this graveyard has to offer.”
For the next 20 minutes or so, we picked through architecture that seemed increasingly divorced from the laws of physics. Statues protruding sideways from mausoleums. Doors facing downward from overhanging plinths. Graves on the side of withered trees. The fun thing about a grave rendered sideways was that the second it's inhabitants pulled themselves out, they would immediately fall face first onto the ground. Which gave me the perfect set up to dispatch them quickly.
The more we pressed on, the more the bizarre landscape seemed to twist in on itself. Impossible objects merged together and looming piles of statues and stone structures lined a ever-narrowing path. And every monster spawned from these anomalies collided with another to create strange new creations.
When we finally turned a corner to see surprisingly wide-open space. At its center, a gigantic ziggurat completely covered with graves on every single surface. The ancient stepped pyramid was utterly covered in grave markers of all kinds. Too many graves, past the point of making sense. Graves on vertical surfaces, gravestones overlapping. A grave sticking out over thin air with nothing underneath it. Like the entire pyramid was made out of loosely packed dirt. Dirt that was turning itself over with thousands of zombies, pulling themselves out of graves.
As we stared, more and more of the structure started moving. The entire surface was wiggling as zombies pulled themselves out all at once as they inevitably intersected, collided, and mashed together. The entire mass of flesh, bone, and stone became one giant entity.
“You have discovered a new creature classified as a Boss Monster. As the first person to have discovered this creature, you were offered the opportunity to name it.”
For a moment, Argyle and I stood there, quaking in our boots in utter shock at what we were seeing. The many-colliding animations resolved and the giant mass formed up. Every zombie, every skeleton, every single one collided and stuck, and formed one massive creature. They formed one large ball of undead.
We both in unison took a gigantic breath. A wave of unnatural calm swept over me, and I became almost giddy.
“It's like a meatball.” Argyle snickered. “It's like a monster, meatball of doom. Let's call it a Flesh Monster, *hee-hee*, Meatball,” laughed Argyle.
“Title, Flesh Monstrosity excepted.”
“No, no, it's supposed to be Flesh Monster Meatball,” complained Argyle .
“Tell Argyle that name is dumb. Flesh Monstrosity is way better,” said Fez.
Two massive arms popped out of the top of the flesh monstrosity and two chunky legs stomped down. Each limb was half a dozen corpses smashed together. A face appeared with a gigantic mouth full of teeth made out of stone and bone. An eyebrow piercing made of bone formed above the eye.
It bellowed at us. The ground shook and bits of rotted flesh pelted us.
“Oh shit. That's a spicy meatball,” said Argyle.
“Run!” I I yelled as it started to roll towards us.
The terrain around us had become a smooth bowl with high walls boxing us in. As if while we were stunned, the entire graveyard had closed in around us. We were right along one of its walls.
Argyle went right and I went left. The massive meatball split the difference, still aiming at where we had been. It just rolled up the side of this area that at some point had transformed into an arena. The boss monster hit the slightly sloping side wall and launched itself into the air. It landed back in the middle, perfectly positioned to start rolling towards us all over again.
“Fez, heal it! Heal the boss!” My familiar started casting healing spells, each one of which took only the tiniest sliver of this creature's life.
“We got a problem boss. I'm gonna run out of Mana long before that thing runs out of Health.”
“Great!” I yelled, ducking out of the way of the massive flesh bolder. “Argyle, anything in your Spirit Summoner playbook?” We both watched as he summoned a wombat only to have it rolled over and crushed by the gargantuan boss.
“Nope, I got nothing bro.”
I barely dove out of the way as it once again tried to run me over. Argyle was not so lucky. He barley managed to bring up his drum. He was bounced and knocked back dozens of feet and landed sprawled on his ass. Thankfully, he was just out of the path of the massive meat wrecking ball.
Watching the arc of his travels gave me an idea, though. I found my stance, positioned my hips. I got out my warhammer and held it above my head. The meatball barreled towards me, as big as a house. As big as one of those giant houses in a rich neighborhood, where you have to wonder how they fill all the rooms.
I stood my ground. I picked my moment. I visualize the swing, and crack!
“You have used golf attack on Flesh Monstrosity. Momentum of Flesh Monstrosity has amplified golf attack by 10 times. You have done 328 damage to Flesh Monstrosity.”
The gigantic ball flew in an arc across the McCobb stadium.
I bellowed out a yell of triumph, holding my warhammer head high. I looked at Argyle and he looked at me.
“Pro move bro!”
“Get behind me!” I yelled as I positioned myself for the next swing. This time, the monstrosity had more chance to build up momentum and I barely managed to time my swing right. I had to time my swing perfectly to connect with it, as I found out two swings later, as it trampled both me and Argyle, knocking my HP down by half.
“Sorry boss I'm all out of heals. I need time to regenerate Mana.”
I was still below halfway and, taking a glance over at Argyle, the Health bar above his head told me he was in a similar predicament. If we took another hit, it would be a coin toss if one of us would survive.
Looking across the arena at the giant zombie sausage ball bearing down on us, I realized its Health was less than halfway too, but that meant that it would take a few more good hits. I would need to make every swing count.
I connected once again and knocked it far, far away. My average wasn't great. I was missing every fourth swing. He probably had five swings left in him. We braced and I swung, knocking him back against the opposite wall.
“Four more.” I said “Four more and it’s done.”
“One more and we're done,” said Argyle, quaking behind me.
I braced as, once again, the mountain-sized ball of death barreled towards us.
Another swing launched it once again across the arena. “Three more!” I called.
“That was close.” Argyle was hyperventilating behind me.
I turned to check in on him. I realized that I had lost the time it took to reposition. I wouldn't make this next swing
Argyle was panicked, sweating, and stammering. Suddenly, he took one deep breath. “Oh no.” I thought. “He won't be able to move in time. The whammy takes several seconds.”
“We're not going to make it!” I grabbed him and I jumped. I jumped like my life depended on it. We rolled and the arc of the meat ball rolled over us. A pointed femur sticking out from the mass just barely swung an inch past my eye. It rolled past us and then the mass of meat again launched itself off the wall and fell to the middle of the arena.
I got up and repositioned myself in front of Argyle, who, for his part, stood up and started to giggle with giddiness.
“We got this. We got this,” he repeated behind me.
“Yeah Argyle. Just stay behind me. Just stay behind me.”
“No, I got this. He waved his drum and over large drumstick. “I’m gonna get it.”
The meatball was on a roll right towards us. I was in position, but Argyle was about to leap in front of me. I swung hoping I would connect before Argyle foolheartedly ran into the path of the deadly monstrosity.
I realized it then. I had set him on this path. I had been the one who not only convinced him to go back to adventuring, but I had purposefully manipulated him into joining me today. And for what? I mean, this was a pretty epic fight, but what was it for? Argyle knew what he was working for. He had a purpose. Sure, he was just as stuck as I was, but he knew that it was for something. I promise to help him, and right now he was inches away from dying. He had already lost a day's worth of crafting and he may lose more gold with this death. I wasn't helping him. I was being selfish.
I stepped forward and swung. I connected. It was mere inches from his face, inches away from flattening him. The giant bolder of fetid meat launched away. “Argyle man, calm down. We got this. Just two more swings now.”
“You’ve been hogging the glory. I got this,” he yelled as he ran forward.
I ran too, holding my hammer above my head, so that I could hopefully swing at any moment. I chased after him. “Get behind me, Argyle.”
“I got this. I'm gonna win,” he yelled.
It was too late. He was somehow running faster than me with his stubby little dwarven legs. Even in his armor, he was outpacing me. “If only there was a running Skill.” I knew that I couldn't get passed him, but maybe I didn’t have to. “Well, Argyle, I hope you forgive me for this.” I swung, connecting directly with his backside and launched him forward. Right at the massive ball of meat.
He flew. He connected, indenting deeply into the meatwad. It deformed, as an impossibly wide pit formed in its center. It elastically sprung back and flew away from him.
My assumption had been correct. He had taken 30 damage from my attack, but as he connected with the meatball, the system perceived him as an attack by me. I remembered how the pebbles I launched never broke or split, but just bounced. Argyle took no damage impacting the monstrosity. The monstrosity, on the other hand, with Argyle's mass, and the velocity of the meatball some advanced calculus within the machine said that I did nearly 1000 damage.
Argyle fell to the ground, dazed, but alive. The meatball exploded like a giant piñata of awful. A shower of teeth and toes rained down on us.
“I think we just won,” I said.
“Congratulations. You have defeated the Flesh Monstrosity. You are the first adventurers to defeat this Boss. For defeating a Boss five levels above your own, you get a bonus to experience. For being the first to defeat this Boss, experience is doubled. For defeating a Boss which you discovered while displaying the title ‘What's in a name’ you have unlocked the achievement 'Vini vidi Vici'. I came, I saw, I conquered. With this achievement equipped as a title, you will receive a 50% bonus experience to discovering new things. You will also do +50% damage to creatures that you discover and name. In addition, you will be given an experience bonus of for every new creature, herb, object, gem, spell, or other new item that you add to the Compendium of items in Endless Adventure Online. Note: you may only have one title active at a time.”
My head spun. “I can't believe it worked,” I said.
Argyle was barely coming back to himself. “You can't believe it worked!?! How could you launch me at the boss?”
“I'm sorry, man.”
“You launched me a boss, bro!”
“Yes, I did.”
“That was epic!” He rushed me and clapped me in a bear hug. “That was so fucking amazing. Also, why am I sticky?”
“Why am I sticky? I think we're both sticky.”
“Yeah, you're both covered in blood and guts,” added Fez.
Across the arena, torches flared. They framed a pedestal and a treasure chest. As we watched, a spectral image of the boss grew from the center of the arena. It looked as if it were constructed out of swirling mist and a very fancy laser light show.
Argyle walked forward. “I wonder if this has to do with my class.”
“Well, go on,” I said. “See if you can do something with it.”
He reached out and touched the translucent image and his eyes glazed over like he was reading a menu. “Sweet!” he said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“For being part of the group that defeated the boss, I was given the opportunity to bind him as a spirit. Actually, I was given the option of a couple of spirits, but the Flesh Monstrosity gave the best bonuses. Apparently, because we were the first ones to discover it and the first ones to defeat it, it gives me a whole slew of bonuses.”
“That's awesome!” I said “So, what does that mean for your build?”
“Well, this is the first offense-oriented spirit I've bound, you know. But apparently I can use it to cast some kind of attack where I launch bouncing flesh balls towards the opponent.”
“That seems a little odd.”
“Yeah, but the damage is great. It looks like it scales with my wisdom, which I've been upping in order to increase my chances of getting an amazing crafting result. Honestly, this looks like it fits in perfectly with my build.”
“That's great, man. That's great.”
“In fact,” he said, his face brightening up, “if I could get another spirit or two like this, I could totally stop using my drum as a shield and be a full time spell caster.”
“Nice! Should we check out the loot?” I asked, gesturing to the large treasure chests at the other end of the arena.
“Let's do it!”
The loot box did not disappoint, with 400 Gold, and some Dexterity-enhancing gloves. It seemed that they would fit in perfectly with my build. There were also a few potions that we decided to split between the two of us. After divvying up the loot, we both touched the pedestal of the return portal and teleported back to the inn.
After meeting back up in the common room, we exchanged high fives and decided to spend the rest of the day crafting.