Only two of them make it to the Fire Dwarf forges and they are immediately met by grumpy, muscled dwarf smiths, who rush at them weilding their hammers. Grimdark is in his element as he rages on. He actually goes green too, just like the Hulk. I’ve followed them down and the light from the forges is better so I can see the change of hue. He screams and roars, swinging his axe and ignoring the blows of the enraged dwarfs. He scatters the little fellows like a bull running through a herd of cats. Occasionally Treebeard throws him a heal, which to my amusement is green tinged, rather than the silver-tinged healing spells of the clerics. Treebeard mutters something and a massive alpha-wolf is conjured and lays about it, slavering tongue and snapping fangs, all adding to the fire dwarf dismay. Grimdark chops them into chunks and even though they are my mobs he’s dicing up, I have to own to a grudging respect for the crazy barbarian. Treebeard is no slouch either and he throws open his hands and glass sharp splinters of wood shoot out, like so much natural buckshot, slicing up more dwarfs. Soon, the stone floor is a sticky mess of blood and dwarf beard hairs matted in and then the dwarfs, plucky and brave, are slaughtered to the last one. Grimdark puts down his axe and leans on it, panting. ‘Xp, xp, xp! I love it!’ Treebeard shakes his head and pats the wolf.

Just then more dwarfs, this time armoured halbediers rush in to take them on.

‘Heal me up Treeman!’ yells Grimdark as he turns to face the newcomers with a snarl, his ginger braids flying.

‘I use Bloat!’ he screams, smashing down on the first dwarf and cutting him clean in half from nape to chaps, or the other way round. I’m guessing Bloat is a barbarian specific skill.

Treebeard says something and green tendrils like some kind of weird ivy snake over the ground, wrap around the dwarf legs and deliver them as dinner to the big wolf.

‘Heal me up, Treeman!’ Grimdark shouts again, after getting jabbed in the pectoral muscle by the sharp end of a dwarf halberd.

‘Treebeard,’ The druid responds.

‘Beardie tree. Whatever. I need heal.’

With a resigned gesture, Treebeard heals up the raging barbarian as he decapitates another dwarf.

There are four dwarfs left and I am tempted to help the dungeon mobs out, but that woudln’t be fair, as I’m Level 17 and Treebeard’s only Level 7 and I’m Level 17. Still, these dwarfs are Level 12 and should be more of a match for the crazy twosome. In fact, it’s only Grimdark who’s crazy, Treebeard seems pretty sensible. As if in weird synchronicity with my words, as Grimdark hacks down another dwarf, he is surrounded by a blue glow, as is Treebeard. Grimdark throws back his head and yells in triumph, ‘I level, I goddam level. I beat this bitch dungeon, yes sirree!’

So now he’s Level 10. Treebeard says, ‘I’m Level 8 now too.’

Grimdark takes a break from killing while his final opponent backs away warily. He turns to Treebeard with a puzzled look on his face. ‘You Level 8 too?’

Treebeard nods.

‘But you not Level 8 too, because, I Level 10, so not too.’

It’s Treebeard’s turn to look puzzled. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘You not too. I not Level 8.’

With this the remaining dwarf halberdier rushes at Grimdark, who isn’t looking. He’s about to get him when Treebeard’s wolf companion darts forward and rips out the dwarf’s throat.

Treebeard says, ‘I don’t know why I joined this group.’

Grimdark laughs. ‘I join because of Melanieoxoxo. She pretty.’

‘She’s a toon. She doesn’t look like that in real life.’

‘No? Is she not modelled on herself?’

‘Are you modelled on your real life look?’

‘Of course.’

‘Really? You’re a six foot six hugely muscled ginger guy who goes around with no shirt?’

Grimdark nods then says, ‘Of course in winter in my country is very cold, so I wear shirt then for sure. And coat.’

Treebeard sighs and says, ‘Let’s go on. I want to finish this dungeon.’

‘There are many levels. It take a while.’

‘Or die. I could die. That might be okay.’

Grimdark steps back and puts a consoling arm around Treebeard’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, little man. I take care of you.’

‘Please, let’s just go.’

They step forward, picking up random low level loot and killing a few more mobs. A bit further on and they are the mini-boss fight. My wizard, Tye is boss of this level. He’s got himself in a luxious bedroom with flame effect decorations and a four poster bed. As they come close, he steps to the door, blue-robed and smoking a cheroot. ‘Hist!’ he says, overacting and placing a hand to his ear. ‘Something wicked this way comes to disturb my well-earned rest.’ He takes a theatrical drag of his cheroot, throws back his head and blows the smoke up into the air. For good measure he brushes back his orange locks from his forehead.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

He can’t see me due to my Observation Mode. I’ve never really seen him with players before, but I might have guessed he’d milk his role like some kind of Hollywood Z-lister.

Grimdark is into it too. ‘Ah, you evil little rut. I finish you off now. Your career of evil is finish.’

Treebeard says, ‘I think it’s runt, not rut.’

‘Whatever.’

Now, Tye cannot bear comments about his stature. His brow furrows. He jabs a finger at Grimdark. ‘Who you calling evil?’

‘Why, you, you ginger failure.’

Tye plants his feet. ‘I’m not a failure, and who the hell are you calling ginger, you ginger freak?’

‘I not ginger, I merely auburn. But you, you carrot-top!’ He guffaws and Tye who’s clearly had enough mutters arcane syllables, wiggles his fingers and sends a fireball scudding across the room to explode into Grimdark with a blast of heat and stink of sulphur.

Grimdark reels back, singed. ‘Hey! Heal me Treeman, Beardie.’

Treebeard sends green healing.

Grimdark mutters, ‘Hang on.’

Tye shakes his head in disbelief. ‘Hang on?’ Then he sends another fireball at Treebeard, noticing the druid for the first time. The fire streaks across the room and hits the druid, but he has very high fire resist and he survives it. His wolf, however, does not. Treebeard howls in anguish, watching the crisped wolf fade out of existence. ‘Joe!’ He turns at Tye and fires a handful of wood splinters at him. They hit Tye who stumbles back from the impact, blood spouting out through his blue robes.

‘Good,’ Grimdark says. ‘I put one hundred skill points into Bloat. Now I really Bloat and Rage!’ His face contorts and he goes big and green. I’m guessing he’s increased his hit points and maybe his damage. With a scream, he rushes at Tye, axe raised. Tye counters with a Flaming Ray that hits the barbarian in his bare chest. Grimdark looks down at the black and bloody hole in his chest and roars in anger. Treebeard fires more splinters at Tye. Tye looks badly hurt and he darts back into his bedroom, glugging down a blue healing potion — one of Bernard’s best.

I’m tempted to help, but I can’t. This has to be a fair fight.

Grimdark rushes into the bedroom after Tye and stops at the threshold to look around at the dancing blue flames on the ceiling and the cloth-of-gold drapes around the four poster. He whistles in admiration. ‘Nice pad.’

Treebeard yells, ‘Get him you oversized dope.’

Tye blasts Treebeard with a Flaming Ray. The druid has high fire resist, but he’s not immune to fire and he catches light. It’s a neat graphical effect, but it doesn’t slow him. He fires more splinters. Tye rolls on the ground, trying to get under the bed, and cracking his head against the ceramic chamber pot, there for dungeon-dressing purposes only. Grimdark raises his axe and slams it down to where Tye was a second before. The blade clangs against the stone flagstones in a scraping of sparks. Tye is under the bed. I’m guessing his healing potion was on cool-down so he’ll have to wait a second. Treebeard mutters and his ivy tendrils snake out again, disappearing under the bed before they pull out a writhing Tye. Tye tries to get off a Flaming Ray but he’s bound up tight by the druid’s tendrils. He throws up his hands to ward off the shooting splinters but takes them full in his chest. He rolls and reaches for the blue healing potion, but before he can raise it to his swollen lips, Grimdark brings down his mighty axe on the wizard’s head killing off my little buddy Tye. I wince, but there’s nothing I can do. The wizard’s ghost shimmers and vanishes back to his spawn point at Silver Drift Mine.

‘Die, little ginger!’ Grimdark shouts, then licks his lips. ‘Good Xp from the little rut, no?’

Even Treebeard’s smiling now. ‘Yeah, good job, Grim.’

The barbarian chortles. ‘Yeah, is good. Good Grim!’

‘Let’s look round for loot.’

They search and find some gold and some Healing Potions (50) and then in the wizard’s bookcase to the side of the bed, he finds the prize loot. Treebeard pulls out a heavy leather tome and leafs through the parchment pages. It’s red leather with gold letters. ‘Hey, this looks special,’ he says. Grimdark comes over and snatches it out of his hand. ‘Hey, man, I found that first.’

‘It’s instanced,’ Grimdark says, losing his accent and for the first time I realise he is only playing the role of the dumb barbarian. ‘There’s one for you too.’

Treebeard looks back at the bookcase and pulls out a duplicate tome to the one Grimdark has. The barbarian winks at him. ‘Grimdark smart, huh?’

Treebeard regards him warily. ‘Grimdark, smart, for sure.’

‘So what is?’

Treebeard’s still suspicious. ‘You know what it is.’

‘No, I merely dumb barbarian. I can’t read.’

I know what the tome is. It’s the boss loot from Level 1 and pretty generous too. It’s a 150 skill boost tome. Each player can only use it once for every skill. Grimdark grabs the book, concentrates hard on it and then a graphic effect of a rain of golden runes appears in the air in front of him. ‘Haha! Free skill points. I put them in Bloat!’

‘I guessed you might,’ Treebeard says.

‘You?’

‘Though it would be best if I put a hundred in Natural Healing and fifty in Magical Beast.’

‘Good. I no understand your fancy druid magic, but you are wise. Tree Man.’

‘Treebeard.’

‘Sure. Let’s go.’

They find a chest containing more gold and some low grade weapons, but are pretty pleased with the tomes, as they should be. They look around the level and before long find the stairs leading downstairs. As they are about to descend, Grimdark sniffs. ‘Funny smell.’

‘Acid,’ Treebeard says.

Right again.

‘I go first.’

‘I’ve got acid resist.’

‘Give to me?’

‘Sure.’

Treebeard mutters magic word and bestows acid resistance on the barbarian. At the bottom of the stairs, he runs into the Acid Shower trap. Between his bloated hit points and the acid resistance, it hardly touches him. It’s a Level 13 trap too. They move on.

They get so far down the rocky stone passage and there’s a grinding noise of stone upon stone. Grimdark turns round as an Acid Golem detaches itself from the wall.

‘Good,’ Grimdark snarls. ‘I kill this.’