Gamer Guild’s Dungeon (3rd Floor, Pt. 1)

--- Joshua ---

“Each of the options has an advantage, so I guess I’ll just leave it as it is.” He eventually decided.

(“You sure?”) The GM asked.

“Eh, I’m tempted by the warrior statue since I can probably get some good upgrade materials out of it, but at the same time I’m not really kitted out for a fight against too many serious tanks, and we both saw how much trouble a ranged enemy gave me with that last boss.” He explained, while marking those various flaws for future improvement.

(“Fair enough.”) The GM seemingly shrugged as the various pedestals disappeared in a flash of light. (“Just figured I’d make the offer, either way.”)

“Appreciate it, but uh, I’d rather not push myself too hard.” (Especially since I’ve got to do that heist in a couple of days.)

He paused, before inhaling deeply.

“Fuuuck.”

(“Uh, what’s wrong?”)

“Just uh, just remembered something I have to do in a couple of days.” He admitted with a grimace. “The kind of something that makes me wonder if picking a fight with the dungeon so close to it was a good idea.” (Shit, will I even have time to heal all the way after this?)

(“Mask stuff?”) His fellow Wonderlander asked casually.

“Mask stuff.” He confirmed with a pained nod.

(“Well, in that case it’s a good thing I’ve been power leveling you on this run.”)

“Yeah, it is.” He told them, thinking about how the few bits of gear they’d given him could help with his (debut). “Thanks for that by the way.”

(“No problem.”) The GM dismissed. (“That said, is this a ‘I need to prepare more’ kind of problem or a ‘I’m going to be exhausted’ kind of problem.”)

“Uh, the second one.” He blinked.

(“Cool, then you can just buy a heal on your way out.”)

“Buy a heal?” He repeated with a frown. “Is that like buying a metric shit ton of potions?”

(“Well… that’s another option?”) The GM told him in a way that said while it was an option it’d be an odd one. (“I actually meant you can’t trade some of your end of Dungeon points for a full heal.”)

“And when you say a full heal?”

(“It restores you to the state you were in upon entering the Dungeon. Though if you were part of the guild I could also heal any non-permanent injuries from before that too.”) The gang leader elaborated.

“Huh, that’s… useful.” (And completely broken if you take it to the scale of an entire gang. She basically just admitted that she can pick up and heal any of her guys.)

(“Yeah, especially since before I set up the heal the only people I could get to run my dungeons were my friends and the occasional daredevil.”)

“Still that’s better than me.” He admitted, starting towards the next room now that he knew he wasn’t completely screwing himself over here. “Aside from my passive stuff, the only heal I’ve got is this one shot at a time thing. And even then it’s not all that strong.”

(“Ooh, you’ll want to fix that if you’re planning on being a solo mask.”) His fellow Wonderlander warned.

“I’m aware, but… I’ve only really set myself to becoming a Mask recently.” He told them in half-truth, figuring that there were enough non-Mask Deviants to let that matter slide. Especially since Wonderlander Masks were particularly rare amongst the various Deviancies.

(“Hmm, wanna talk about it?”) The GM offered.

“Not particularly.”

(“Yeah, my start wasn’t nice either.”) His fellow Wonderlander confided. (“Still if you play the game right, you can get to the best ending. I mean just look at me for example! I’ve got so many people playing my games and having fun now that I can’t bring myself to regret a thing!”)

“That’s good.” He smiled, appreciating the gesture even if he wasn’t entirely sure how applicable it was to his own situation. (Maybe we can do a crossover episode some time?)

It was something to consider, if later since he was coming up to the door to the next room. A quick glance through a crack in said door revealed three short creatures with long ears and noses that looked fairly similar to the three goblin statues he’d seen earlier.

“Anything you’re willing to share about these guys?”

(“Mm, Warriors will rush you will the Rogues try to snipe you and the Shaman heals whichever has the lowest health.”) The GM warned him.

“Right…” He considered what to do for a moment, (I’ve got like three real attacks, a marking buff, and whatever my Madness field counts as… That’s actually not that much, especially since the GM asked me not to tag things and I’ve got no idea if my field will help me or hurt me half of the time…)

Shaking his head and focusing on what he could do, he eyed the Shaman Goblin while wondering if it was in range for his Ink Pull and (if not I wonder if I can run around the Warrior and the Rogue since they’d both be pains to deal with while the Shaman ‘s healing them. Once he’s dealt with I should probably rush the Rogue so he can’t backstab me or some shit while I’m duking it out with the Warrior, who is probably just going to tank whatever I throw at him.)

With half a plan in place he grabbed the door’s handle and got ready to rush the room.

(Shaman, Rogue, Warrior.) He told himself once more before shoving the door open.

Not wasting time he immediately rushed around the Warrior and to the side of the room opposite the Rogue who was reaching for an arrow in the quiver on its back. Figuring he didn’t have much time left he threw out his Ink Whip and grabbed the Shaman before pulling it towards him. With a flex of his wrist he Toonified his hand before grabbing the Shaman and slamming it into the floor, where he raised his foot and stomped hard enough to shatter the goblin into pixels.

An arrow shot past him, grazing his shoulder but luckily doing little damage beyond a stinging cut. He twirled his Ink Whip around his hand, aiming to pull the Rogue to him before it could get off a second shot, only for the Warrior to step between them and force him to reconsider.

They stared each other down, both waiting for whichever of them would make the first move. And of course since he was not known for his patience, that was him.

Rushing the Warrior, he Toonified his hand before punching the goblin as hard as he could, sending it staggering just long enough for him to deliver a second Toon Punch, and a clumsy roundhouse that just barely sent the tanky monster toppling to the ground.

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Not willing to waste an opportunity he ran up to the Warrior before jumping into the air and stomping it with his full weight. An action that provided just enough extra damage to shatter it beneath him.

That was when the arrow caught him in the shoulder. “Fuck!”

He glared at the goblin before using his Ink Pull to drag the Rogue to him, where he proceeded to punch it across the jaw before Toonifying his other Hand and uppercutting the goblin hard enough to shatter it.

“Fuck! That was a bad idea!” He cursed, clutching at the shoulder that he’d made worse by punching with an arrow in it.

(“Yeah, that was not the smartest thing I’ve seen you do.”) His fellow Wonderlander agreed (oh, so helpfully.)

Taking a deep breath he grabbed the arrow by its shaft-

(“Uh, hold on a second-”)

-and ripped it out of his shoulder.

“Fucking hell!”

(“Okay, you need to down a potion now!”) The GM told him with a force he hadn’t heard in their voice before.

“Yeah, figured as much.” He admitted feeling a bit light headed as the wound closed at a slower than normal rate. (Must be reaching the limit of my healing factor.)

Reaching into his coat, he pulled out one of his Health Potions before downing the red concoction and as it hit his tongue he couldn’t help but think (I prefer the strawberry flavor with a bit of copper.)

(“Alright, now I’m going to ask if you know what you did wrong there?”) His fellow Wonderlander asked him in a terse tone.

“Um, I punched with a messed up shoulder?” He offered with a hint of confusion as he gestured to the wound that had almost stitched itself shut now.

(“Yes, but you immediately realized that was a bad idea.”) The GM pointed out. (“What made that idea worse however was when you ripped the arrow out with a chunk of your shoulder!”)

“Uh, what else was I supposed to do?!” He snapped back despite knowing his fellow Wonderlander was just concerned about him.

(“The arrow would’ve gone straight through the meat of your shoulder. It would’ve hurt to push it the rest of the way through, but it would’ve done a lot less damage to yourself if you’d done it that way too.”) The GM explained in a way that told him they were keeping their voice level on purpose.

“Yeah, alright… I remember reading something about that in a book or some shit.” He admitted. “But I couldn’t exactly remember that with an arrow in my shoulder!”

(“Right…”) The GM growled. (“Give me a second.”)

“For what?” He asked as cautiously as he could, since the GM was reminding him of Maddie whenever his brother did something stupid.

(“I’m disabling the Mask damage realism protocols.”)

“The what?” He blinked.

(“I thought I told you about this.”) The GM sighed. (“There’s different difficulty settings for Masks and non-Masks, one of those is the fact that Masks can receive more serious damage from their injuries than what I give the tourists who run the dungeon.”)

“And you turned that off?” He frowned.

(“Yes.”) The GM told him bluntly.

“But I thought you said that was a Wonderlander power interaction thing?”

(“It is, but this is the same as lowering the enemy damage by a percentage, which will hopefully keep you from being hurt worse.”) The GM explained.

He bit his lip to keep from giving her his immediate response, which was infuriated by the idea of someone forcing the kid gloves on him just like-

(“Come on, why can’t I go on patrol with you?” He whined. “I thought I was supposed to be your sidekick!”

“You are.” Chris smiled ruffling his hair. “But we have to wait on your powers to come in before you can help out with the serious stuff. Just wait and see a couple more years and you and I will be kicking bad guy butt all over the place.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”)

He shook his head, forcing himself not to remember just how many times he heard that promise as he was sidelined.

(No, I’ve got my powers now, and no one is sidelining me ever again.) He assured himself as he forced down his rage. (But just because I’ve got those powers doesn’t mean I’m good enough to take on the big leagues just yet.) (But one day I will.)

Taking a deep breath and then letting it out, he eventually began picking up the bits of loot the goblins had dropped including a handful of coins, a goblin ear, and what looked like a metal bracelet. (Hopefully this’ll give me a decent upgrade later.)

Once his loot was collected, he started towards the next room while trying very hard not to think about the fact that it would be just a touch easier than the previous one.

(“Are you okay?”) The GM eventually asked him, having apparently grown wary of his silence.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Just remembered something I’d rather not.”

(“Sorry.”)

“Don’t be. I’ve had issues for a lot longer than one afternoon.” He laughed with just a hint of bitterness.

(“Still…”) The GM trailed off for a moment before continuing. (“I shouldn’t have snapped the way I did, it’s just I’ve got so many players who think because they’ve got powers now it makes them invincible. At least until…”)

“Until they take a bullet and take a trip to the hospital.” He finished with a touch of dark amusement.

(“Well, we can’t take them to the hospital, but basically.”) The GM admitted. (“Most people don’t realize it takes more than a few levels for my Players to get a proper Phys resist.”)

(Yeah, I don’t really have a frame of reference for that… Though I am curious,) “You don’t break Physical damage into slashing, blunt, and piercing?”

(“Nah, it’s all physical damage, and piercing would just ignore armor.”) The GM seemingly shrugged. (“For the most part I use a homebrew system based off of the Deviant’s Masquerade tabletop system, just with a Gaming skin over it.”)

“So no Wind or Water damage but you can get Wind and Water resistance?” He’d always found those freeform rules a little weird compared to the video game versions.

(“Stacking with and at half the price of Physical Resistance.”) His fellow Wonderlander confirmed in a chipper tone.

“Yeah, no offense but I think I’ll stick to my cartoon powers.” He told them. “Keeping track of all those numbers is a bit too much of a pain for me.”

(“But watching your numbers go up is the best part!”) The GM whined.

“Perhaps, but the reverse can be true too.” He pointed out with a mad grin. “After all there’s nothing quite like a show that’s sold out.” (Not that I’ve had one of those yet.)

(“Lower numbers are only good if it’s the other teams.”) The GM argued. (“You can’t tell me you don’t want to up your number of subscribers.”)

“Hmm, I do.” He conceded, as he considered the possibility of an online presence. “But that doesn’t change the fact that a live performance is superior to a recorded re-run.”

(“But sometimes you won’t catch everything of value on a single play through!”)

“Oh, I never said there was anything wrong with giving an encore.” He felt his smile widen to maddening proportions as he came to the door to the next room. A laugh bubbled out of his throat as he kicked open the door, not even bothering to study the room as he gave into the moment, (improv his most infamous skill.)

“What I said is that I have a preference towards a live audience, where I can watch their every reaction to the show moment by moment!”

Like the room before there were three goblins sharing the stage with him, (not that any of them can match my star power.)

“To custom tailor the performance to match their every emotion!”

He skidded around the warrior even as it tried to strike him, before wrapping his Ink Whip around its throat and reveling in the stage music playing inside of his head.

“To draw out the depths of passion and tragedy!”

He shifted his weight, using the entirety of his strength to throw the Warrior into the air before tugging it down with enough force to slam the goblin headfirst into the ground, shattering it into a dazzling flurry of lights and leaving only its sword behind.

“To take every available tool and add it to a performance to remember!”

Flicking his wrist to the side he easily grabbed the blade with his whip before throwing the blade hard enough to impale the Shaman through its chest and into the wall ten feet behind it. An experience that proved far too strenuous for its frail constitution, as it and the blade exploded into a swirl of pixels.

“To inspire awe and terror the likes of which they’ve never experienced!”

Turning to the final goblin, as it struggled to draw an arrow across its bow, he walked up to it in just a few short strides of his rather long legs, before grabbing it on either side of its face and staring into its panicking eyes with his own unblinking gaze.

“As I make sure none of them will ever forget the name, !#^@, %#& #@!$!#&@ #@@#!”

With all of his strength and a mad laugh he crushed the goblin’s skull between his hands before throwing his hands up and freeing its firefly-like lights into the air. As mad laughter echoed all around him, he idly wiped at the space above his mouth before noting the fact that the back of his hand was covered in ink.

(“Oh, that’s not good…”)