Haru: Acolyte, Level 10/20
Optifex: Initiate, Level 10/20
ErcuEmu: Legionnaire, Level 10/20
Alara: Apprentice, Level 10/20
Tacito: Footpad, Level 10/20
Haru targeted Emu while watching him from the far side of the room, ready to heal as fast as she could react.
The legionnaire started to open the door across the hall to what was the boss room containing the silver key. They’d already defeated the key boss, so no one had a clue what was waiting for them on the other side. With a click, the latch released, and the door slid open with a groan. Emu disappeared around a corner after taking a few steps inside.
Haru slid to the left, attempting to keep an eye on the legionnaire. But soon after losing line of sight, her targeting faded, and she lost track of his position. “What’s in there, do you see anything?” The acolyte leaned, out of other options to get a better view while keeping her distance from the hall.
After a while, Emu returned, walking in without a shred of urgency. “It was just sitting there on the desk like normal.” He scratched his head. “But there weren’t any mobs in there. What is going on with the pacing of this dungeon?”
“Aw man, I was hoping for something good.” Opti nudged the ground with the toe of his shoe.
“Is the dungeon bugged?” Alara approached Emu. “I’ve seen it happen a few times before in other places. Kinda lame.”
Taci shook his head and sighed.
Haru felt pain welling in her chest, the aching from her affliction returned. Since the group started questing it had gone away, something she even forgot about for a time because Haru was having so much fun with the party. But their collective agitation at the situation reignited the infection once more.
“Well, it’s alright, we just found the boss in the wrong place. N—no big deal, right?” Haru looked at the rest of the party.
“You’re right,” Alara responded to the acolyte, “but what else is going to go wrong in this place? If I need to submit a support ticket because we got stuck, I’m going to be livid.”
Haru sensed the mage’s growing frustration, and it fueled the affliction. This was the demon’s plan, not some full-scale transformation of the game, but modifying small details that caused confusion and would lead to frustration and anger. And just like eating cookies from a packet of Royal Choco Biscuits, Irae would pluck each instance of wrath to feed upon.
“She is correct, yes.” Emu motioned for everyone to follow. “I thought there would be a lot more mobs, but since there’s nothing around, let’s continue together.”
The group gathered and then continued through the hall toward the next staircase upwards. It was a spiral, made from bricks of stone. At the top was a wooden landing that created a second floor far above the first. There was a single doorway that led out to a suspension walkway from the tower to a smaller structure that was technically in the Plentiful Glade.
On the bridge, the group fought a Gogo Bomber. The fight was relatively simple, it dropped the bomb after igniting it and Emu used Line Breaker with a stun proc. Because they were all level-capped until getting out of the starter zone, Haru wondered if the early limit break was something already in the game, or if it was of the demon’s design.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Once the party entered the secondary, smaller structure, which they were at the topmost floor, they descended a wooden set of stairs hugging the rectangular building’s walls. One floor down, and the group encountered more mobs. They were in an area about half the size of the tower’s atrium, and a ceiling a quarter as tall. Getting good positioning would be a challenge. This time it was a Gogo Bomber accompanied by two wolves, a setup similar to what they fought in the first boss fight.
Much like in the Beast Master encounter, the party split up to combat the wolf adds. Emu kept the goblin busy. Opti and Taci held the attention of the adds. Things grew complicated when the legionnaire accidentally put the bomb carrier below 50% HP while the rest of the party was still focused the wolves.
The Gogo struck the wick and turned the battle into a timed fight.
Opti swapped targets to burn down the goblin as fast as possible. Pummel was off cooldown. Emu spammed Line Breaker as fast as he could. Proccing a stun was their only hope and so far, he was without success. Even though it wasn’t stopping the deadly AoE, the damage was shredding the Gogo Bomber. But it didn’t seem to be enough. Its explosive attack was set to go off.
Red orbs formed around the enemy and a deep rumble echoed out. It was using the ability Detonate.
Alara swapped targets in a last-ditch attempt to stop the goblin’s explosion from going off.
The initiate was taking a ton of damage from the wolf hammering him from the flank.
Haru struggled to keep up with healing both Opti and Emu and also Taci. She now had three tanks to worry about.
Emu had one more shot at proccing a stun with Line Breaker before the goblin was set to blow the whole party up. The close quarters meant it certainly would hit everyone. Despite standing no more than two steps away, the legionnaire twitched for a second. The ability would slam him into the foe, no matter the distance.
Success, the stun procced. With less than a second to spare, the Gogo dropped the explosive and took itself out.
The party finished off the wolf adds and then everyone took a knee to enter recovery mode.
“This was harder than the bat boss.” Opti called out while in recovery mode. He looked toward Alara. “You said the bat was a terribly hard boss. I don’t think so.”
“Well I’ve only done this dungeon solo.” Alara looked back at Opti. “I wouldn’t know how easy or hard it is with five people until I did the whole dungeon.”
“It’s easier than I expected.” Opti stood up, fully healed.
“Yes.” Alara continued to recover her mana. “They should definitely fix this, it’s way too easy with five people.”
Haru’s chest pulsed with hurt for a moment. The discussion was starting to anger the mage.
Haru looked around. “We’re almost there, right? I’m excited to get more levels once we limit break.”
Alara grumbled. “Yeah, I suppose.”
Opti nodded. “I want new skills, just having one is getting lame.”
“Same,” Emu laughed. “I just want to go to the auction house and buy new gear.”
Haru smiled. “Soon!”
Everyone finished recovering and stood up. Emu once again took the lead and beckoned everyone else to follow.
The party descended to the bottom floor and the structure ended at the beginning of a cavern system very far underground. Peppering the rock walls were huge indigo crystalline structures embedded into the surface.
“We’re getting close to the next boss fight, so keep your eyes open. I don’t want to get ambushed like we did with the Blood Hunter Bat.” Emu called out, pointing around. “This thing can come from any direction.
Haru drew closer to Alara, worried about being suddenly attacked by whatever the next boss was going to be.
“It’s hard to miss, it’s half as wide as this cave.” Emu continued. “But even solo, sometimes it likes to hide in one of these side-shafts and charge at you.” He pointed to his left and right as they passed by dead-end sections of tunnel that branched from the main line.
“Good, I was hoping for a solid fight.” Opti flexed.
Taci drew his bow and scanned his surroundings.
Haru began to wonder how much they changed up this dungeon since she last researched it. There was plenty of time to do so when she was taken out of the alpha version of the game.
The overall path before was much more elaborate, having to climb the tower multiple times before coming all the way down here. Likewise, these caves were much more winding, and many parts of the path were perilous, having to traverse over narrow sections with bottomless pits around every corner.
This was much more streamlined, a feature Haru liked about this new design.
A pair of glowing gold orbs caught Haru’s attention and snapped her from thought. “What’s that?” She pointed toward the beady pair of lights that were in a dark portion of one of the dead-end shafts.
The party stopped and turned to follow her indication.
Emu rushed forward as the two orbs wagged and waved, sweeping across the width of the side shaft.
“It’s the boss!” The legionnaire used Line Breaker.