Chapter 6.

“Well this looks different,” John said as he looked over the constructs and failed to notice that Jake’s character had stopped.

“Guys, my character is poisoned! There must have been poison on the handle.”

“Oh, that is bad,” Michael said nervousness becoming panic, “Should we retreat?”

As though In answer the first of the three constructs, nine-legged machines of bronze and wood, lifted a cask of wine on top of its chassis and burst a hole into the barrel. Then it aimed the resultant spray at them.

John managed to block the purple stream with his shield, but Michael and Jake’s characters were less fortune and they were both pushed back a good distance and drenched.

“Now it says my character is drunk! What?” Michael half reported and half asked.

“Mine too. It is making the poison worse!”

Jade nervously said, “I can sing a healing song, but if I do that, the light will start to go out.”

John was moving back and forth trying to avoid giving the first construct an easy shot, but he said, “We can handle it being dark in here for a little while.”

Jade ended her light song and switched to healing. Jake and Michael advanced into the room, slowly drawing axe and sword held behind their shields.

“Another one is loading, watch out!” John called out as lowered his shield and ran.

The first construct turned and followed him, a weakening stream of liquid spraying just behind him, staining walls, floors and other barrels. John managed to out race the stream until he could take cover behind a new stack of barrels. The second machine finished its loading process and then sprayed a clear liquid towards them. Jake managed to parry the force of the blast with his shield, but his character was not strong enough to stay this close to the blast and he was pushed backwards towards the wall. The construct switched targets towards the end of the stream and splashed Michael’s character until he fell over.

“Now it says I am suffering from the Drunk 2X de-buff.”

“Not so loud, mom might hear you!” Jade said as her character finished the second verse of her song.

The effects were removed from both characters and after a muttered thanks, Jake drove his character forward towards the first construct. It hadn’t loaded and he thought he could get a good blow first, so he dashed forward. The second construct sent a dream of clear liquid after him, but he was just fast enough to not be splashed and he landed his blow, right on one of the wooden sections on one of the legs. It shattered and the entire construct rocked wildly. Jake could not take advantage of this distraction as he needed to stay moving or get sprayed, so he had his character duck beneath the construct and scurry underneath. The high pressure stream continued and neither construct seemed to mind the friendly fire, as the eight-legged construct returned to reloading.

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John jumped over his cover and landed on top of the barrel and broke it with a hard swing. The second construct began reloading and Michael charged it to try and got a few swings against the bronze sections, which lowered its general health. Jake prepared to turn around and help John finish the first construct when he saw the third construct was slightly bigger than the other two and that it had just finished loading a second barrel on to a second firing position. That was a problem.

Two clear streams crashed across the room and took down both of his melee allies before they could dodge or block. Jake tried to charge the third, but it brought both streams towards him, broke through his shield wall and threw his character a number of feet across the room.

“Well this is a problem,” Jade said as all of the weapons dimmed into the dark.

“All of our characters are drun… I mean all of our characters are poisoned,” Michael said before adding uselessly, “And we basically can’t see anything.”

The problem compounded when the constructs all launched at them again.

Your character is Drunk 6X.

There was then a mad scramble as the characters tried to dodge the streams of alcohol without being able to see anything. Given that the constructs could see in the dark, this was not especially successful.

“It says my character is Blackout Drunk!” Michael said with some incredulity.

“How long till we have lights?” John asked nervously.

“I’m working on it,” Jade said as her controlled made more noises.

Finally a dim light returned to their swords and axe and the still standing party went to work. All of the constructs were in a loading cycle and Jake was able to have his character stagger behind the biggest one and then cut off one of its legs, just as it started targeting John. This caused an auto miss and despite the control troubles caused by enforced drunkenness, Jake was able to repeat the feat. Meanwhile, John’s character staggered through the barrels and stabbed and cut with the sword he was using, keeping the construct he was nearest to from firing. The other had run out of nearby supplies and was walking slowly across the room to grab a new barrel.

Jade had switched to a healing song and as long as she didn’t make any mistakes they would still have light long enough to finish this fight. Jake kept cutting and while the drunken de-buffs messed with his attack speed, when he did connect his axe separated legs. Soon the largest could no longer move and Jake shifted targets moving over to the second one. He wasn’t able to strand somewhere in the middle of the room it before it got to a barrel and started loading it.

Jade’s healing song finished and she switched over to light just as the weapons started dimming and as John finally got a lucky hit and his target sank into passivity. Michael’s character stood up, but he noted, “I am still Poisoned 8X. What’s up with that?”

“At this level, I can only remove two levels of physical de-buffs and restore 10 hit points per average healing song.”

Jake absorbed that news as he used his block to take a stream of clear liquid and even though it knocked him back a good distance, with the de-buff weakened to Drunk 4X, his character kept his feet. When the stream ended, there was a brief pause and then the construct tried again. Jake managed to hold out through this and then he forced his way up to the construct and hacked off each of its legs, before it could finish reloading the next barrel. Jake looked around to confirm things and saw that John and Michael were piercing the larger construct and trying to break it down, so he went over to assist them, just as the light flared again.

He finished taking off most of its legs before he got a title pop-up.

Leg Biter, (Copper)

For taking off ten legs in a battle, you have earned a 2% odds of taking off a leg with every hit of a melee weapon, assuming other thresholds are met. If the target has more than two legs, this stacks by 1% per extra leg.

“Anyone else get a title for cutting off their legs?” Jake asked as the last hit points were cleaned out and the construct began to dissolve.

“No. Could I have my axe back, that might have helped,” John said in something of a huff.

“Sure, sorry about that. You just have to take 10 off in one battle, so when we have more time, we could try it again later.”

John paused and said, “Yeah, we need to get back to town, but when we are all available, we could try again.”

“Hurry, I don’t want to keep having to sing this song about light!” Jade commanded.

A chest dropped and that signaled they had cleared the dungeon. The party collected the gold and silver and left rapidly. Once they were outside, Jade could stop singing about light and finish healing them up, in case they ran into anything else dangerous. The most valuable goods were carried back and after a muddy walk their characters leveled up, and by mutual agreement they were parked where they could learn in their downtime.