We stand in the middle of a massive ring that’s easily 200 feet in diameter. The torches lining the top of the walls, no doubt enhanced by magic, light the space with ease. No one’s sure where he is, but an announcer’s voice rings out loud and clear.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the debut match of Team Carcosa!”
A respectable cheer comes from the crowd. As the voice continues, we each down five booster potions. All in all, they provide us with a five point increase to speed and strength, twenty extra hit points, 5% better health regeneration, and ten extra mana.
“Since it’s their first time, they’ve opted to fight five rounds. Good luck!”
The walls of the ring are twenty feet high and made of stone. The floor is dirt, pressed flat by countless fighters and monsters. Metal doors, some man-sized, others large enough to fit a bus through, are set into the walls. One of the larger ones open and out pours thirty goblins.
Goblin Warrior (Level 1)
HP - 50/50
Abilities - Horde
When the world converted to System, each person was attacked by the equivalent of three goblins. While rather pathetic on their own, their Horde ability is nasty en masse. For each additional one of their kind in the group, goblins gain a single extra hit point. That doesn’t seem too hateful…until there’s a hundred of them.
The green, lanky, leathery skinned creatures raise their weapons above their heads, scream, and rush us. Andy, Jamie, and I let loose with a volley of arrows as Doctave and Dominick send forth a burst of Chain Lightning.
Smoking goblin corpses blink out of existence as the announcer returns. “A job well done! Time for round two: more goblins!”
Six doors, spaced evenly around the ring, open to reveal six groups of ten goblins. Like before, they rush us with weapons held high.
Not wanting to miss out on the fun, Justin, Brian, Jennifer, Lewis, and Sarah rush off towards their own pack. Like before, cackling lightning fries a group of monsters. It takes the melee fighters some time to hack their way through their ten goblins, but, all in all, the round doesn’t take over five minutes.
System alterations make people want to do the thing they do. Crafters want to craft and fighters want to fight. Because of this, our fighters are smiling ear to ear when they come back to the center of the ring. The blood and viscera coating them makes their elation all that more creepy. A quick Cleanse spell from the Wizards gets them back to normal.
“Teamwork makes the dream work!” The crowd gives a bigger cheer this time. “Goblins are easy prey, as we all know, but what about something with a bit more bite?”
The goblins corpses vanish once more as ten dire hounds rush from five open doors.
Dire Hound (Level 5)
HP - 100/100
Abilities - Emboldening Howl, Pack Mentality, Strong Bite
Conditions - Pack Mentality
One thing you should know about dire hounds is they’re quick. I barely have enough time to send an arrow down range before the beast is on top of me. At level five, the hound isn’t much trouble. My 25% damage reduction turns the ball of teeth and claws into little more than an annoyance, even with its enhanced bite. While my left arm is being chewed on, my right chops into the beast’s neck until it dies.
Dom and Doctave, as Wizards, have little in the way of durability. They make up for that deficit with overwhelming offense capability. Dom hits his monster with a pair of ice spikes while Doctave fries his with a gout of flame. It’s a bit of overkill, but that’s better than getting your throat ripped out.
Andy and Jamie, the Rogues, nimbly dodge the hound’s attacks, using their daggers to inflict many wounds. Their kills take the longest, but the monsters die nonetheless.
Sarah and Lewis, the two Clerics, use their armor to great effect. Dire hounds are rather dumb, and once they latch on to something, they don’t let go. These monsters can’t bite through metal bracers (at least at this level), so the Clerics use their mace and sword, respectively, much the same way I did.
Brian, Justin, and Jennifer, all well armored and sporting large weapons, end their fights with little spectacle. The Swiss armor wearing Asian uses her Cleave ability to literally chop her hound in half. Brian’s sledgehammer caves in the ribs of his monster, though it requires a second hit to kill. Justin lets his hound tackle him, rolling with the hit and landing on top of the beast. A solid head butt and knife to the throat ends the threat.
This time the crowd cheers without prompt from the announcer. The voice waits for the crowd to quiet before continuing his dialogue.
“Seems the people enjoyed that one! Get ready for some aerial action!”
Screeching fills the tent as six giant bat monsters soar into the ring.
Dire Bats (Level 5)
HP - 80/80
Abilities - Acrobat, Carry, Deafening Screech, Venomous Bite
We move into a defensive circle. Andy and Jamie’s arrows, as well as the Wizard’s spells, are dodged with ease. Acrobat is a useful ability.
The monsters dive at us all at once.
Using a well-timed attack, Lewis slices open one bat’s stomach, causing it to crash into the floor. Andy isn’t so lucky. Changing his bow for a shortsword, he misses his attack and is snatched up by the shoulders and carried into the air.
A pair of Deafening Screeches hits the rest of our group, dropping all of us to our knees. Two of the bats land and attack with their powerful, leathery wings. The disorienting attack keeps us from mounting a decent defense.
Using his Rage Class Ability, Brian glows red for a moment before tackling one of the massive bat creatures. The creature bites clean through the tooled leather armor and delivers a dose of venom. Not wanting to be shown up, the Barbarian uses his own teeth and rips out the bat’s throat.
I recover just in time for one of the flying dire bats to snatch me up. As it grabs onto my shoulders, I use my dual hand axes to slice through its feet.
Sarah shakes off her disorientation, then uses her mace to knock a bat off of Doctave. The Nigerian Wizard casts Gout of Flame, pushing the flying beasts away from us.
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With some breathing room, the group reforms. All except Andy. The Rogue is still in the air, held aloft by a screeching bat. He’s not so high that the fall will kill him, but it’ll still do some serious damage.
Doctave flings a ball of sticky webs from his hand, tangling up the monster’s wings. As the Rogue falls, Dominick is already casting a levitate spell. The bat lands poorly, its neck snapping with an audible crack.
Three down. Three to go.
While we wait to see what the circling bats are going to do, Brian gets weak in the knees. “Sarah, Lewis, I could use some help here.”
Nodding her head towards Brian, Sarah sends Lewis to the rescue. At level ten, he’s the next highest level Cleric in town.
Lewis’ hands glow as he places them on Brian’s wounded shoulder. A sigh of relief is breathed as magic neutralizes the burning venom. Another spell bumps the Barbarian’s health up to 80%.
“Wizards and Clerics sound off. How’s your mana?”
Doctave and Dom are at roughly 50%. Sarah is close to full while Lewis is down to about 70%. Though both Clerics went with combat oriented builds, Sarah put a few more points into mana, while Lewis went for more spells overall.
“Health?” No one is below 80%. “Wizards, get them on the ground. Then everyone else hit these fuckers with everything we’ve got.”
With a plan in place, the Wizards confer with one another. Doctave takes a centering breath and lets loose with an overpowered Web spell. When he cast it before, the sticky material shot out of one hand and expanded to roughly the size of an adult human. More than enough to ensnare a dire bat. This time, though, he used both hands.
As the thirty foot wide web shot into the air, the bats did their best to dodge. Even with Agility they couldn’t hope to avoid it. One bat dodged the wrong way, putting itself in the dead center of the spell. The other two almost made it out. Almost.
No longer able to fly, the three monsters drop to the ground hard enough to cause the floor to shake. That alone reduced their HP to less than 25%. Arrows and spells finished them off.
We know the next round is coming, so the mages each pull out a blue-colored potion and drink it while Sarah and Lewis top off HP.
The announcer’s voice, chipper as always, booms out once more.
“Talk about a rough start, but they brought it home in the end!”
More cheers from the unseen crowd.
“This time around we’re going for variety. Let’s see how our contestants do against small, medium, and large!”
As the doors barely crack open, I see a blur coming straight for me. Before anyone can react, something small and feathered slams into my chest, launching me back several feet. The others take up defensive stances as an anthropomorphic tree barely squeezes out of a doorway. An odd-looking monster hangs from the branches.
Alpha Micro-Titraptor (Level 5)
HP - 80/80
Abilities - Agility, Alacrity, Hamstring, Tackle
Treant (Level 8)
HP - 500/500
Abilities - Barkskin, Magic Resistance, Razorleaf, Slam
Monkey-Wolf (Level 10)
HP - 200/200
Abilities - Agility, Pack Mentality, Symbiosis, Vicious Bite
I stand up and look around for the speedster. The only other titraptor I’ve seen was the dead one a few months ago. This one, though, is very much alive.
Standing against the arena wall, fluttering its wings, the alpha micro-titraptor is something to behold. Take the relatively common, gray and white tufted titmouse, make it the size of an enormous cat, then give it blood-red eyes, sturdy, talon tipped feet, and a face like a velociraptor. Said face is full of razor-sharp teeth, of course.
The treant is about as generic looking as one would imagine. Out of its cage, the thing stands some thirty feet tall, though only about ten of it is the trunk. I want to say it was once an oak tree, but I’m no arborist. It has modified tree limbs as arms and branches for fingers. The way it uses roots to move is odd looking, kind of like it’s riding around on a pile of worms.
Now the monkey-wolf. It looks pretty much exactly like a chimp with a werewolf's head. Which is weird, by the way. The gray wolf's fur blends into the dark brown monkey hair at the neckline. Razor-sharp claws, at least three inches long, tip each finger. While chimps are a lot stronger than they look, this thing looks as strong as I hope it isn’t.
We spread out, with the Wizards moving to the back and the armored folks to the front. Though the Treant is level eight, it’s hard to say how nasty that Slam ability is. I keep an eye on the alpha titraptor while it circles to our left.
Dom is the first to act. With a quick set of hand motions, he lets fly an ice spike. The monkey-wolf backflips further into the treant’s canopy as the spell crashes into its trunk. We all take a collective gulp when the treant’s HP only goes down by twenty.
“That was the most powerful spell I have.” Dom scoffs and turns to look at Doctave. “Hit it with fire?”
“Gladly.”
The Nigerian mage grimaces as he overcharges his attack. Before he can let loose, the alpha micro-titraptor flares its plume and rushes in. I’m expecting it, but before I can make the interception, the speedy beast is past me, crashing into the Wizard. Doctave goes down like a sack of potatoes as the titraptor squawks and hamstrings a nearby Andy.
As the Rogue screams in pain and collapses to his knees, the treant lumbers forward. From inside its canopy comes a howl-hoot as the monkey-wolf chucks out a crude wooden spear at the downed Andy. Sarah blocks the projectile with her shield. The group spreads out even more.
Jamie and I follow the micro-titraptor as it darts back to the edge of the arena. “Stick close to me and use your bow. Maybe you’ll get a lucky shot, but mostly just keep it distracted. If it comes close, I’ll try to hit it.”
Jamie acknowledges by sending an arrow at the tiny beast. It dodges with ease.
I feel a wash of heat over my back, and turn to see a stream of fire pouring from Doctave’s hands. The treant roars and swings its arms back and forth in front of it, trying to fend off the flames. Its hand-leaves burn, as does the surface layer of the bark. I curse out loud when I notice a blur from the corner of my eye.
Jamie lets off another arrow, but she’s nowhere near fast enough. The titraptor is on her in a moment, Tackling her to the ground. The beast claws and bites her face with fervor. As she screams for help, I dive into the side of the tiny monster.
Using my full weight, I pin the alpha to the ground. The thing bites into my shoulder repeatedly, tearing out chunks of flesh. I snatch it by the neck, rip it off me, and slam it face first into the ground. I pull out one of my axes, intending to chop the alpha’s head off, but it’s flopping around so violently I have to use both hands.
“Jamie, help me!”
The Rogue piles on top of the bird-monster, dagger in hand, and starts stabbing with abandon. Though she hits more than she misses, a few of the hits are on my hands and forearms. My DR helps, but Jamie’s Talents give her daggers some serious heft in the damage department. My health goes down by twenty percent before the micro-titraptor dies.
As both Jamie and I stand up, she looks at my wounded arms. “Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Got a little carried away.”
I’m desperately trying to remain chill. The Rogue’s puppy dog eyes and dramatic, single tear melts my heart a little. Someone behind me screams.
Turning around with weapons at the ready, I see the rest of my team and their situation: Justin is a crumpled mess, looking like he took a Slam attack from the treant; Doctave is dragging Dominick away from the monkey-wolf, a wooden spear sticking from the latter’s stomach, while Brian continues to duke it out with the beast; Andy, no longer hamstrung from the alpha, is firing arrows at the treant from a safe distance; Sarah, Lewis, and Jennifer, with their heavy armor and non-magical weapons, are up close and personal with the treant.
The treant roars with pain and anger as it swings its limbs around wildly. Maces and swords smash and hack into the monster’s bark-skin, rending vast swaths of material from its torso-trunk. Though the monster’s Barkskin ability is soaking up a lot of the damage it's taking, it can only stop so much.
Jennifer, though burly and covered in full plate, nimbly dodges under an attack. Lewis isn’t so lucky. The Cleric stumbles over a root, and before he can recover, is knocked thirty feet across the ring by a limb-arm.
Letting out another roar, the treant throws its arms wide and lets loose with Razorleaf. Hundreds of leaves shoot out in every direction. I tackle Jamie to the ground, using my larger frame to shield her from the attack. As the ability washes over me, I feel hundreds of razor cuts slice into flesh and shred what little clothing I have.
When the attack ends, I have less than a third of my hit points. My back is a wreck, and it’s all I can do to roll over and grimace in pain. Jamie pulls a healing potion from her belt and pours the liquid down my throat.
I sit up, taking in a deep breath as my HP shoots back up to half. Grabbing my twin hand axes, I scramble to my feet and rush the treant. The monster is down to its last 85 hit points and it’s time to end this fight.
To my left and right, Jennifer, Sarah, Jamie, and Andy all have the same idea. The five of us lay into the tree monster, using every ounce of strength we have to kill. Overwhelmed by the number of people murdering it, the treant flails and stumbles aimlessly, roaring in defiance.
The monkey-wolf’s Symbiosis ability alerts it to the treant’s death. As the hybrid monster howls in sorrow, Brian attacks. Activating Rage and Power Attack, his level five and ten Class Abilities respectively, the Barbarian uses the monkey-wolf’s distraction to land the killing blow. The spinning attack gives Brian’s sledgehammer enough force to literally explode his opponent.
“Car-co-sa.”
“Car-co-sa.”
Even though we’re beaten, broken, and exhausted, the crowd’s praise energizes us.
“What a finale that was, folks! Team Carcosa finished their five rounds, and it looks like that was just the right amount. Now that they know the lineup, hopefully they’ll come back and take it even further!”