Dan didn’t look around inside the Mausoleum of Bak’ung. Not even at the giant ax in the middle of the antechamber, and that ax is super cool. There’s a ton of cool shit in there. I love it when participants try to steal it. Some spend an inordinate amount of time trying to do so. I admire their persistence.
Dan walked right up to the door and entered the Trial proper without looking at one thing.
This one starts off in a big camp. An army camp. Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Is an army camp still called a camp or is there a better word for it?
[Encampment, cantonment, bivouac. There are lots of words to call it, but camp works just fine.]
Okay. The first part of this Trial is called ‘preparation.’ The goal is to raise troop morale, speak to all the different generals and learn what force is best at fighting or countering specific demon or devil forces, yadda, yadda.
All the troops are blurry, and the generals wear full helms, hoods, or have their faces hidden in some way. I’m positive this’s so they can just reuse this Trial for every Game without making any changes.
If a participant doesn’t prepare well enough and doesn’t send the right troops against the right enemy forces, they lose the battle and are killed, but any idiot putting in a minimal effort here is going to win the battle. This part and the battle are exactly the same on every difficulty, and difficulty is selected beforehand.
The better participants do in the preparation phase, the easier the battle goes, and the less life Gorgos has when the party or participant must fight him. The only thing higher difficulties do is increase Gorgos’ health for the end fight.
This Trial is unique in a lot of ways. How the battle works and the fight with Gorgos. He isn’t a clone. He’s purely scripted. He’s like an idiotic robot using mostly basic attacks. When his health gets down to a certain percentage he does this special attack, at another percentage he does this other attack, etcetera. There’s a pretty easy way to cheat too.
Bob, Az’ga, and I already knew how Dan would win. He would cheat. And I’m not knocking him for doing so. I cheat whenever I can. I love cheating. It’s one of my favorite things to do.
Dan didn’t talk to any of the generals. He skipped the big speech he can give to the troops too. That speech is a super easy way to raise morale and give all the troops a big buff, so that was dumb. He set up the forces to attack perfectly though.
The participants’ part in this battle isn’t too involved. They’re at the front of the army, and a handful of trash fights are thrown at them. The number of enemies they face depends on the number of participants in the party, and enemies match the highest participant’s tier.
For whatever reason, summons aren’t allowed in this fight, so Ashen Ruin wasn’t there. That didn’t matter. Dan easily blew through these fights. He spent most of the time looking off into nothing.
He could’ve watched the fake troops battle. I figured he would’ve since it was a close thing. His army still won despite him doing nothing to raise morale since he set everything up perfectly.
Winning triggers a cutscene where Gorgos comes stomping out and obliterates all the world’s forces. Only Bak'ung survives. Just FYI, it never shows Bak'ung’s face either.
When the cutscene finished, Dan was standing in front of Gorgos. No Ashen Ruin still.
If Dan dismissed and resummoned Ashen Ruin, the infernal could’ve helped in this fight, but he didn’t do that.
Gorgos appeared with full health, and at Hell difficulty, Gorgos has an absolute shitload of it. It would take forever to kill him. We hoped Dan planned on cheating. If not, we were in for one Heaven of a long fight.
After Gorgos did some basic attacks, Dan snuck up around him, jumped up, grabbed his belt, and climbed up onto his shoulder.
Gorgos will turn to face participants, but he has no script to deal with one climbing him. He just keeps attacking like the participant is in front of him.
I don’t know what idiot designed this fight, but they suck. How it usually works is that some stealther will realize climbing up to that belt isn’t too hard. Then they get to work backstabbing like mad.
A few of the scripted attacks at health percentages can still kill participants balancing on the belt. Instead of running away from the attack, which is heavily telegraphed, the…
[What does that mean? The attack is telegraphed?]
It means Gorgos signals he’s going to perform a special attack. The whole area of effect is highlighted red.
After that signal, instead of jumping down and running out of the area of effect, a participant will realize the area above Gorgos’ chest isn’t bathed in red light and getting up on one of his shoulders doesn’t seem so hard. So, they climb up.
Stabbing the eyes or neck doesn’t do extra damage. For whatever reason, filling Gorgos’ head with mana just depletes his health like mad.
Dan began forcing lava into Gorgos’ ear. He could’ve used the nostrils to do this cheat too.
Pretty much every Game, every tech puts in at least one ticket to get this Trial fixed, but it keeps on never being fixed.
After a couple minutes of Dan putting lava in the ear, the battle was over and the Trial completed, triggering another cutscene.
Even though Dan won the fight, the cutscene still showed a laughing Gorgos beheading Bak'ung. After that cutscene ends, a longer one plays showing a world being Raptured.
Dan appeared back in the lobby with Ashen Ruin next to him.
For SS, the reward choices were the Indestructible Hide of Bak'ung or the Robe of the Last Remaining.
This is the only way for participants to get something to wear that they don’t take from participants’ corpses or cutting up blankets. No clothing is sold through the Profile Reader. And since mortals are almost universally prudes when it comes to wearing clothing, this is how they get some that last.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The robe repairs itself but constantly draws a little mana from the wearer’s core. It’s also thin and doesn’t provide much protection at all.
The hide is big and bulky and provides decent protection. It also repairs itself. But it only draws mana from the wearer’s core when it’s repairing, not all the time like the robes. But this armor makes cycling and qi-gathering meditative techniques harder and a little painful.
In the murals, tapestries, and cutscenes, Bak’ung always wears the hide. I think they threw the robe in so there’d be a choice. Most people take the robe. I think that’s because the hide armor looks so stupid.
Dan took the hide. He looked absolutely ridiculous once he put it on. Far more so than usual. Because he’s a fat with such a stupid looking face.
Once Dan exited the Trial, I appeared next to him. I said, “You look absolutely ridiculous. Far more so than usual. Because you’re a fat and your face is very stupid looking.”
Dan attacked me again. Viciously. Like an animal. With the same result as the two previous times. What a fool.
I told him, “You’ll never be able to hurt me, Lord Fatso.”
Dan, breathing heavily, stopped attacking and said, “Is there any way for me to put in a request to have a male technician? I don’t want to deal with any of you female Asmodites.”
Wow. That had cut me to the quick. I said, “I’m 100% male. And a Kobolite. Since you’re a full stupid, you just can’t tell demon-types apart.”
“I reckon I can, ma’am,” replied Dan. “Asmodites of the first layer are the lowest spawn of Asmodeus, same for Kobalites and Kobal. I know a female Asmodite when I see one. I know a male Kobalite when I see one. I’d bet every last fragment and all the Foundations and Orbments in this backpack here that you’re a female Asmodite. I’m certain of it.”
I had never felt so indignant. Just look at me! I’m clearly a male. I’m clearly a kobalite. I look nothing at all like a dumb Asmodite broad. No one had ever made this mistake before. It was infuriating.
Before I could properly address this, Dan saw someone that had stolen from him earlier. He ordered Ashen Ruin to stand in place and not attack, chased the girl down, and tackled her.
“Sorry about getting physical, ma’am, but you stole from me, and I want my stuff back.”
The girl screamed out, “I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt me!” Then she really turned on the waterworks.
“I ain’t going to hurt you. Stop crying.”
She cried and pleaded harder not to be hurt.
“I ain’t going to hurt you. Just stop.”
She didn’t stop, so Dan eventually let her go. What a sucker! It was clear to anyone with half a brain she was faking. She was just manipulating him. What a fool!
By the direction Dan was jogging in, I assumed he was headed back to the Castle. I kept pace so we could settle the foolishness he had brought up earlier.
As I started to talk, Dan interrupted and said, “Excuse me, Miss Xotl, you never answered earlier. Can I put in a request to have a male technician assigned to me?”
I yelled out, “I am 100% male, fool! Just look at me! Look at me! And my name is Ace Blacky! Not Xotl! Have you been speaking to Zixy? Are you conspiring with her against me? Now, this bet…”
Dan interrupted me again. “Okay. We can bet. You know what a push-up is?”
I became very excited. Rarely do participants trust us enough to enter into bargains, probably because the Profile Reader tells them never to enter into bargains with us techs. We only ever get a chance to make those knife deals, and those don’t count as demon-bargains.
Since Dan had learned so much about the Game through Carnegie Hall or time travel, I had zero hope he’d be stupid enough to enter into a demon-bargain with a tech. He even explicitly warned the others in my team to never do so.
I said, “Yes, I know what a push-up is,” setting up the bait.
“Okay,” replied Dan. “I can do a lot of them. What’s an amount of push-ups you don’t think I could ever do?”
I had seen Dan struggle to do forty or fifty push-ups when the Game initiated. The morning after he increased his Strength Stat to C-grade, his arms shook mightily and gave out a little after he completed sixty or seventy. But if this was a bet, I was going high.
“I know you’re great at push-ups,” I replied. “I may be lowballing, but I think you’d struggle to complete eight hundred push-ups.”
It was hard for me not to laugh. Fat Dan was so out of shape, even with the current grade of his Strength Stat with ten points in it, he’d be lucky to do a hundred push-ups.
Even if his own life depended on it, he’d collapse right on his fat face well before completing a hundred and fifty. No matter what, two hundred would be an impossibility.
Dan stopped jogging and started walking. He was breathing heavily and trying to catch his breath. “Eight’s a little much for me. I could probably do seven hundred. How about this – we bet I can do between seven and eight hundred push-ups to give me a little leeway. If I can’t hit the minimum, you get all my fragments and Orbments, and I’ll consider you whatever type of demon you want me to.”
I almost shivered in joy. What a fool!
I said, “We cannot bet physical rewards. Maybe I could owe you a favor if you win? And if you lose, the same. And you must admit that I look nothing like a filthy Asmodite broad. And my name is Ace Blacky. It is no longer Xotl. The word Xotl will never pass your lips again. If you lose, that is, though this wager highly favors you.”
Dan nodded and said, “I can do that.”
I had this fool right where I wanted him. I added, “And you’ll need to complete the required number of push-ups in one go. No tricks. No resting. You must do correct push-ups. Your knees cannot touch the ground as you perform push-ups, and your chest-groin cannot touch the ground for more than a second. If either event occurs, you fail. If you stand, you fail.”
Dan looked downcast for some reason. I started to get nervous.
“Of course I got to do them all at once,” said Dan. “And correctly. It ain’t going to be easy though. But how can I trust you? I don’t believe you’ll keep your end of the bargain.”
I was hoping that would happen. That he wouldn’t ask details of what owing a favor entailed. That’s how we get these stupid fools. I said, “I’m a demon. Once I accept an agreement, I’m bound to the terms. What I’m worried about is you. How do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”
I didn’t want him to, of course. It works out much better for me when mortals break a demon-bargain.
He said, “Because I’m not a piece of shit demon. We got a deal? Exact terms as stated above? Yes or no. No more negotiating.”
I tried not to smile smugly as I replied, “Yes.”
Dan got down into the push-up position and began. He did correct military push-ups. His chest-penis banged off the ground each time, and he fully extended his arms. He did eight push-ups and stood.
At first, I was excited. Then I was confused. He didn’t go until he collapsed. Why? Just quitting after eight made no sense at all.
I reviewed the wording of the deal. Between seven and eight hundred. Anything between seven push-ups and eight hundred push-ups. I was so excited to scam this fool, I ended up letting a stupid mortal get the better of me in a demon-bargain.
Though it’s rare, even Ace Blacky can slip up occasionally. I hate Dan, but I had no choice but to respect the scam. What a power move!
I figured Dan would at least smile or something. He didn’t gloat at all. He didn’t even look at me. With his brows still furrowed, he just started jogging northward again. I kept pace and asked, “What favor does Lord Fatso want?”
Still without looking at me, he said, “I’ll hang on to it. Just don’t go getting executed on me before I can cash it in, ma’am.”
Apart from Zixy, I had never wanted to attack someone so badly. I’m clearly a male! I’m clearly a Kobalite! This had never once been questioned by anyone before this.
Bob and Az’ga have both assured me that I look exactly like a Kobalite male, but doubt has since wormed its way into my mind.
You think I look exactly like a Kobalite male, right? And nothing like a dumb Asmodite broad?
[I do.]
Thank you, Boss. It’s so infuriating! How is he so stupid?
Anyway, Dan ran all the way up to the Court area again. That’s a lot of running. The order he hit all these areas in was crazy too. This guy was completely nuts.
You’ll be interested in this next part, Boss. It’s related to what you were asking about earlier. He went over to the other side’s high pantheon shrines. This is one of the reasons why his status is murky.