Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! Debriefing, quick battles and last boss!
ANYWAY, after reading yesterday’s comments, I noticed that some people were thinking that Excel might be a bit too difficult for a level 20 dungeon. After some thinking, I must say that they might be right. For a low level dungeon, it is a VERY complex fight. That’s why I’m using this chapter as some kind of debriefing where they discuss the boss mechanics and give a bit of their views on the boss. (Which coincides with mine, btw)
ALSO, I do plan on making the wolf as strong as the drone, but taking a completely different direction. It should be a two-chapter fight again, and afterwards we leave the dungeon for some crafting, quest delivering and finishing the arc, where I will take a break from Insania for a week or two, then we come back to a solo hunting arc after so long.
ALSO(2), this refers to the spoiler Also from a few chapters ago… So, there might be some minor spoilers in here.
Spoiler :
I might have been a bit too mean with the whole Cygnas pet-body guess-work I made, after all, the thing I plan to use only appeared ONCE, wasn’t on the spot light and wasn’t mentioned ever since…
ALSO(3), LAST DAY FOR Q&A QUESTION! Two questions per poster, any character you wish, no spoilers! Know more about your favorite character!
Have a good read!
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“Hey, Gon… *snicker*… Why aren’t you… *snicker* singing your happy golem… Song?” Hanbei asked me with a clear smirk in her face.
I looked sullenly at her for a moment before turning back to my corner of the room and go back to drawing circles on the floor. Can’t you leave a golem to suffer alone? Must you rub it out on me like that?
Aura and Yuu were each sitting nearby while trying to find a way to console me, but no matter what they did, there wasn’t much of a chance for me to recover so soon from my actual state of depression. After all, I did mess up badly just then, and now I am back to square one.
“Gon, stop sulking and get ready! We already got the item we needed!” Sir Yagver said while coming back from the room that opened after the drone had its dramatic death.
I nodded weakly while raising myself from the ground and walking slowly back to the exit.
“Goddammit!” Xredder said angrily. “When you were dying repeatedly to the boss you only got angrier, but now you feel like a walking corpse! What the hell! It was only a level!” He said while glaring at me.
“It wasn’t only a level… It was a pointless, meaningless and perfectly avoidable death that cost me my recent level…” I answered hollowly while hanging my head.
“… What exactly am I missing here?” Lenny asked while looking at us confused.
“Didn’t you see what happened?” Xredder asked her confused.
“No… My brother called me during the fight, so I called him back when we finished and I was on the call with him up to now.” She told him with a confused look. “I warned Yagver, didn’t he tell you?”
Xredder blinked for a couple of times before sighing and starting to explain my situation.
“You see, this idiot golem here got all excited when the fight finished and went to mine the walls of the room.” Yes, yes. I saw that mining spot on the wall, got all excited and ran towards it so I could score a few more crystals. “But he picked a bad and fragile spot, which made the wall crack and fall on him.” Yep… I got over confident, started mining ignoring the fact that there was a huge crack due to a stray crystal. But the crack got bigger, the wall fell and killed me.
And I had just dinged to seventeen!
So, here you guys have, the drone killer, killed by a falling wall…
I know, that was ridiculous and idiotic. Why do you think Hanbei is mocking me?
Well, at least my Shield mastery did reach intermediate and I earned a new defensive skill.
For reaching Intermediate level on shield mastery, you have unlocked a new sub-skill: Stand ready.Sub-skill: Stand Ready [intermediate] [lvl1]
(levels increase with Shield mastery)Your experience with your trusty shield has taught you how to receive blows with a better stance that reduces the impact received.
Increase block and M.Block value by 20.
Effects lasts until you move.
Attacking while using Stand ready cancels the skill effects.Cost: 20 Energy.
Cool down: 1 minute.
“Well… That’s… Pitiful.” She said with a slight hint of empathy in her voice, but soon went back to her serious mode. “So, what did we get for gear?” She asked looking around.
Yagver and Han-chan smiled widely as they showed her the new loot.
Aggression Protocol: Slicer (one-handed sword)
(requires level 18)Attack5-7Extra:(none)Quality:ExcellentDurability:2/2Description
Excel-Loran’s once proud sword that shattered at its life end. Wowever the core remains, keeping all of its original sharpness on a smaller size. Don’t be fooled by its appearance, as it’s much tougher than it looks.
STR +7 AGI+7 TGH+7
Durability is restored once sheathed.
Weapon Skill: [Shattering end]
God-stopper chest-plate (Super Heavy Shield)
(requires level 18)Block:300M. block:150Quality:ExcellentDurability:50/50Description
A piece of armor made to resist even the strongest of the blows. Once part of the mighty security drone Excel-Loran, after being infested by crystalized mana it grew even tougher, but after losing the infesting crystal on death, all the enhancements were lost, but its defensive capacities remain.
Movement speed penalty: 33%
These were the two equipment we got from the drone.
Hanbei’s sword was a long crystal made into the shape of a katana, but with a jagged edge, like Excel’s room-divider sword. It was a beautiful blade that, whenever its low durability reached 0, it would explode dealing damage. But even then, as long as she brought the remains of the blade to the sheathe it would restore it to full in the blink of an eye.
My guess is that this is the exclusive loot for being the first to kill the boss.
Then, came Yagver’s shield. It literally was the frontal-part of the drone’s chest plate, being large enough to cover the jötunn until near the shoulders with him standing straight up. At first look, it seems trashy, since it is hard to move with it as it gave a hefty movement speed debuff while equipped and didn’t have a single status point, but the block value more than made up for it, being double of his actual shield.
He didn’t equip it immediately, since it wasn’t worth using it on the monsters on the way to the boss. But against slow and heavy hitting opponents it’s a wonderful piece of equipment.
Or that is what I think, at least.
Leaving that aside, I wonder if I can also skin this guy like the other drones. If possible, I want to get some of his plating to make a decent shield for myself. Not one like Yagver’s mind you, but a lighter one, like mine.
“Shishou…” Yuu approached as soon as we left the area. I turned to her and raised my eyebrow. “Why did breaking the pillars before did nothing to the boss, but afterwards it started to break his arm?” She asked me curious, and the others soon turned to me curious.
“That was also bugging me, to tell the truth…” Yagver said with a curious face, and Xredder nodded with his arms crossed.
I sighed and started to explain.
“You see… When we were breaking his limbs before, what did they all have in common?” I made them the question I asked myself back at the fight. They all blinked surprised and started to think.
I made a small smile while I watched them, before turning to Aura who I caught with a slightly jealous gaze towards Lieutenant. I sighed a bit and picked her up without warning. She looked surprised for a moment but soon calmed down when I started to pet her. I think I already know what is making her this way. I’m not so dense as to not get these clear signals.
But there wasn’t much I could do while in this dungeon, so for now I would have to calm her with some petting until I get back to the capital at the very least.
Feeling some jealous eyes on my back, I turned to see Yuu staring at Aura, but besides that, she didn’t seem she was going to ask for anything, probably noticing Aura’s strange mood.
“So…?” I asked her with my eyebrows raised. She shook her head slightly and said.
“The attacks were still connected to him when we broke them.” She said after recovering her focus.
“Yup!” I said with a nod, which made the others look at me confused.
“But, wasn’t that Yellow pillar far away from him when we broke it?” Lenny asked confused, but I shook my head.
“It might be far away, but do you remember his position when he created the crystal? And when he used the green crystal?” I said with a mischievous look and she looked confused for a moment.
“On both attacks, he kept the foot inside the ground.” Yuu explained for me, and the others blinked surprised. “He was linked to the crystals through the underground.”
The others finally clicked in on the meaning of her words as their eyes widened in shock. Then Xredder frowned as he started to think about it.
“Then, why didn’t it work before?” He asked confused, and this time even Yuu looked confused towards me.
“Did you notice the boss movement when he creates the pillars?” I asked, and received some embarrassed gazes from almost everyone. I sighed before explaining. “Whenever he called the pillars, his arm would stand on the ground for a moment before he raised and shot the red crystal. If my guess is right, at that time he is separating the pillars’ crystal from his arm.” I explained to them. “So when we spread to break the pillars, he would already have separated his arm by the time the first one is gone, but focusing on one, we can destroy it before he takes out his arm.”
They looked surprised for a moment before they all started nodding as they stopped to think about it. If I had to explain this boss’s fight in one word, it would be that we had to attack his attacks, kind of a weird concept if I had to say it myself.
“Geez, that sure is one hard boss… I hope the wolfy isn’t that bad.” Hanbei said after some time with her shoulders dropping. I noticed that some of the others started to nod in agreement.
“Well… After we understand how he works, I don’t think that he is all that difficult.” I said after some thought, which made them look at me like I was some kind of monster. Their gazes were so intense that I even had to take a step back.
“Actually, I agree with him.” Lenny said with a nod. “We became overwhelmed when our attacks started to bounce and kept attacking him mindlessly which left us open for his attacks. But when we kept our focus, his attacks were very easy to avoid…” She said while holding her chin in her hand.
“Are… Are you two crazy?” Han-chan asked while looking at the two of us. “How the hell is that an easy fight? It’s almost impossible to understand what we have to do in there!”
“One: Don’t attack boss. Two: Break pillars, colored crystals and sword/whip the fastest possible. Three: Don’t stand still during berserk. Four: Keep limbs dead while repeating two and three. Five: Hit boss HARD. Six: Survive black berserk. Seven: repeat.” I said while counting on my hands before turning to her and giving a wide smile.
“When you put it that way…” She said while giving me a twitching smile.
“A bit over-simplified, but it does describe the fight.…” Yagver said while thinking for a moment.
“Besides, when you think about it, the one limb berserk, the yellow crystal bombs and the black crystal are pretty much the only things that we can’t avoid taking damage, all the others we can just walk away from the skill or destroy it on time.” I added afterwards, which made Han-chan sigh loudly.
“But isn’t that a bit too difficult for a dungeon of this level?” She said while tilting her head.
“Rather than difficult, I would say complex…” Lenny added pensive. “But she’s right. It IS a bit too complex for a relatively low level dungeon…”
I stopped to think for a moment before nodding. When they put it that way, it does seem a bit too much for something of this level. Luckily, most of us here have some experience with MMORPGS, so we managed to find out somehow, but I don't think casual players would have found out the trick by themselves.
“Oh! I know!” I said suddenly. “Maybe my quest changed the difficulty of the dungeon? It does say that it’s a heroic quest…”
“And can that even happen? I mean, a quest change a dungeon’s difficulty?” Xredder asked confused.
“Well… I did hear from a friend that some higher leveled dungeons can be made harder under certain circumstances. But the rewards do get better with it…” Yagver said while looking back at him. “So it might be possible for a quest to also do that, I guess…”
Oh? So he knows someone from the upper levels? That is interesting… Actually…
“Talking about high levels, what is the highest level right now?” I asked curious, and I noticed as Yuu and Han-chan perked up to hear the answer.
“From what I heard, it seems that someone dinged forty right before we left the city…” Yagver said with an awkward smile. Is it someone he knows?
But, wow. Level forty? That is more than the double of my current level… But knowing the type of people that levels so quickly, they probably are only killing things non-stop, pretty much ignoring everything else about the game. Well, not that I am complaining, if that is what float their boats, so be it. It’s not like they are bothering me in any way.
Now, speaking about strongest, what about guilds? Are there any player guilds out there already?
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
When I asked Yagver, he told me that there are a few guilds formed, with three of them being the largest so far.
One is called Oregon, and is the main choice for those who want to focus on PvE, and it seems that the strongest player is in this guild. The only problem is that their main base is set on a far away capital, a couple of weeks away from Eldor. Probably the same one that Phantons is actually.
The second is Fall of the Phoenix, and is a mainly PvP focused guild, but not the PK kind, and more of a friendly guild where they have tourneys and so on. This one seems to be located on Ezoria Argus and is pretty much open to everyone.
The last one is Light’s fury, and this is a bit of an odd one. They actually work as some kind of police force on the area around Eldor and are led by an Undead paladin dwarf. They pretty much are openly hunting Player killers around the city and making sure that no one is monopolizing hunting grounds. Apparently their main objective is to hunt down that Green-eyes guy.
Thank god someone is hunting that psycho! I hope they get him before he gets me…
As we walked our way back to the first fork on the road, me and the girls kept asking Yagver about the game’s actual stage and so on, since he seems to know more about it than us.
Well, I did spend most of my time crafting and hunting and never really cared too much about those things to bother with researching about them. But since we had nothing to do while walking, I decided to catch up with the news.
After around ten minutes, we reached the divide and started walking on the other way.
Since this path was still unexplored, we quickly reached a group of drones and wolves that were still alive. But, let’s say the truth, after Excel, these guys weren’t even enough for us to even consider a challenge.
We quickly cleared the first three or four groups of monsters without any worries since they were only the basic version of each mob. When we got to the fourth and so on, we started to get a few new wolves with some flashier skills, and learning from our experience, we decided to pay attention on their skills since they could help us up ahead.
The first different one was a larger wolf that, whenever he howled, the other wolves would all use their skills together, independent of the cool down. Luckily, as long as they didn’t have too many stacks of their howling skill, it wasn’t much of a problem for Yagver.
The next wolf was an interesting one, as they would use their claws to cling on the crstals before jumping away and attacking Yagver from behind. That kind of reminded me of the Lynxes I fought back at the starting village. We dealt with these by making me tank back-to-back with Yagver, stopping the wolves from jumping onto his back.
Finally, there was a huge one with large health and used an annoying swiping attack that hit in an arc in front of him, but he wasn’t anything too troublesome compared to the others.
Overall, they were a bit lack-luster compared the drones, but at least they weren’t all that bad.
However, this did work to make me wonder something. Back to when Arkhoss showed me the image of the two bosses, the wolf didn’t seem all that of a grand boss compared to the drone. I mean, he might be a huge wolf, but that is still not enough to be made into a dungeon boss.
Also, something that I found interesting, was the fact that the caves didn’t match to the map we copied back at the division of the path. Some of the passages were blocked while there were passages where it wasn’t supposed to be anything at all, almost as if the cave was remodeled after the map was made.
Of course, this made Lenny angry, as the map she had made was pretty much useless for us now.
Heck, for the last ten or so minutes we were walking on a part that there wasn’t even marked on the map! At least I dinged back to seventeen on the way.
It must have taken us around one hour from getting to the new area to reaching a new area that was clearly different from the rest. It was still the same large opening on the cave, with half of the room covered in translucent crystal and the other of the same dark brown rocks as the rest of the dungeon. But there was a large crystal blocking our way to the next part of the dungeon, as well as four small holes on each diagonal corner.
“Wave event…” Xredder said with a wry smile and Yagver nodded in agreement.
“Yup, wave event.” Yagver said with confidence.
“Wave event…” Lenny said with a long sigh.
“Wave event?” Yuu asked confused.
“Wave event.” Han-chan nodded.
“Wave event!” I shouted cheerfully.
“You like wave events?” Xredder asked me surprised.
“Nah… It’s just that everyone was saying it, so I didn’t want to be left behind.”
He sighed while face-palming while I smiled proud of my little joke. Yuu looked around slightly confused and then turned to Hanbei.
“Why does everyone looks bothered by the wave event?” She asked Hanbei, who sighed loudly.
“You see, Yuu-chan. This event is composed of many waves with lots of enemies that come in fixed time intervals.” She said downhearted. “It’s not like it’s bad or anything of the like, but different from mini-bosses, these can drag for a long time without us being able to do anything about it, and after so long in here, we aren’t exactly on the mood for doing something of the like.”
Well, they might be bothered by it, but thinking on the sheer amount of skinning I can do with this kind of thing just gets me even more pumped up than usual.
“Since we have no idea on how the waves are composed, lets all gather near the door and put our backs to it. Me and Gon take the center, Xredder and Hanbei take the flanks. The rest stay within the formation and bombard slash heal us.” Yagver quickly gave the instructions. “If the big ones come, spread out to avoid the swipes and nuke him down quickly before gathering back together.”
Yuu heard the instructions with a slight frown and said.
“Won’t we be surrounded that way? I don’t think it’s a good idea…”
“But that is the point.” I said while putting my hand on her shoulder. “Usually, this kind of event end up with us being surrounded no matter what we do due to the sheer amount of enemies.” She widened her eyes surprised at this. “On normal online games, it usually wouldn’t matter much, since we have an upwards vision of our character, but I guess that on VR games the strategy is a bit different.” I turned towards Yagver and he nodded.
“It’s as he said. Since we can only see directly in front of us, if we can reduce the sides to watch out for, even if only by one, it’s a great help.” Exactly. I turned towards a pensive Yuu and said.
“So, since there will be many enemies, we’ll be counting on your AoE to take them out!” I said with a smile and she nodded excited.
So, we entered the room and gathered around the crystal blocking our passage at the end of the room and readied ourselves. Yagver even changed his shield since we didn’t expect much movement. Immediately after, there was an obnoxiously loud howl coming from the back of the crystals.
It was to the point that I had to cover my ears to even be able to bear it. Soon after, the sound of claws scrapping the ground came from the holes from each corner of the room and were soon followed by the wolves popping up from these places.
There were around ten wolves coming at once on the first wave. All of them being the basic ones we fought at first, so we quickly nuked all of them down in the matter of seconds, thanks to Yuu’s spells and Lenny’s new weapon skill that showered a whole area while using only one arrow. Sadly, the cool-down was a bit on the long side, being a whole minute long.
After the first howl, every thirty seconds came another howl from the cave which summoned new wolves, with each wave coming with two more wolves than the previous.
On the fourth wave the commander ones started to come and things started to get hectic, as we had many wolves attacking us all at the same time thanks to his annoying skill. We left Lenny to nuke him as soon as possible.
The sixth wave, the jumpy ones popped up, but thanks to our formation they couldn’t use their skills to the maximum, so we pretty much ignored them.
By then we were all pretty much getting frantic, since the wolves howl stacks climbed at ridiculous speeds and we were starting to take some serious damage. It was to the point that I jumped away from our group and started to spam the skill I haven’t used a single time since I earned it. Whirlwind.
This was the attack I earned back when I learned dual-wield, where I spin around once and deal damage to all around me. And there was a very good reason I didn’t use it up to now.
I forgot about it!
Nah, I’m joking. The truth is that since I was the one responsible for tanking the drones, it’s best to control my DPS on a single target than spam an AoE Skill that might take them below the health a bit too fast and threaten to blow all of us up.
But now that there were only wolves here?
All I do is spin!
And then I run back to the group to wait for my energy to come back up before jumping back in.
I even wanted to change my other weapon set to a dual-wielding set with the blazing-tail sword and so I could deal even more damage with the attack, but the time between waves counted as battle, so I wasn’t able to change my equipment.
This helped a bit on the damage dealing, but it made Yagver have a bit more trouble with tanking. Or would if it wasn’t for his over-sized shield of ultimate blocking. He could take all of them at once as long as Han-chan and Xredder didn’t let the wolves flank him.
On the eight wave, there was a loud cracking sound, and when we turned back we saw that the barrier had started to break due to the loud howls.
Together with that, there was a significant reduction on the amount of wolves coming, but two of the huge ones came from the passage that led to the room.
Yagver took the two with his new shield while I took the smaller ones on.
I think this wave was supposed to be one of the strongest ones since the cleaving damage of the large ones did hurt, but thanks to our loot from Excel, it became the easiest wave thus far.
But I must say that it was funny how it took the Jötunn almost a full ten seconds to cross the room at maximum speed, but lets keep quiet, shall we?
Then came the ninth wave, with one more large wolf and three or so more smaller, which we dealt with the same way as the previous one.
And, on the twentieth howl, there was no wave. Only the sound of the crystal wall shattering, revealing the room of the final boss.
I looked to the others and noticed as they smiled happily, thankful that the fight was over in one shot, different from the two drones before Excel.
But I still couldn’t shake off this feeling that there was something lacking about the whole wolf part of the dungeon. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger in it. Yuu even looked worried at me for a moment, but since I couldn’t understand myself, I was unable to explain what was up.
Still, we passed through the passage and found ourselves staring to a huge area compared to Excel’s. But this one was completely covered in crystals except for the ground, that was still made of stone.
The whole room had the shape of a square with rounded corners. The crystals covered all the walls and even the ceiling, leaving nothing uncovered. On the central part of the ceiling, the crystal went all the way to the surface, making a translucent passage that showered the room with the natural light from outside and making all the scene shimmer with a beautiful light as the rays hit the crystals.
And near the center of the room, there were four huge crystal pillars with easily four meters of diameter each, going from the ground to the ceiling around ten or fifteen meters away, where it fused back with the crystals on the ceiling.
Between the two farthest pillars, right on the divide of the outside light and the cave’s shadow, was a wolf lying on the ground. Even from afar we had the idea of its huge size, as he was longer than even the crystals pillar he stood near. His body was a mass of powerful muscles, to the point that it wouldn’t surprise me if he was capable of breaking the pillars through sheer strength alone. A large and majestic mane covered his neck while a pair of light blue stripes contrasted on his dark fur, running all the way to his long tail, where three crystalline appendices sprouted from its tip forming a scythe-like weapon.
The wolf opened one of its eyes and looked at us, almost as if asking how come there are such insects before him.
Finally, he blew air out of his nose, as if annoyed and slowly rose from the ground. I felt shivers from that action alone, as he got into a better position and quickly shook his head as if to focus.
He once again looked back at us with his eyes, annoyance exchanged with anger.
And he howled.
The previous howl were incomparable to this, as I saw that the pressure blew even the pebbles near his feet away. He whipped his tail on the ground once, the crystal tips making three small holes on the ground with scary ease.
Something within me was pretty much shouting that this guy was dangerous. That there was still something that we didn’t know about.
I turned to the others, but was shocked as I noticed that they looked a lot more at ease than me. Even if shocked by the howl, they weren’t all that worried about the boss as they saw his nameplate.
Crystalline moonlit ravager (doggy)[lvl 21] [ELITE dungeon Boss]
Equivalent level: 26
(aggressive)HP: 23000/23000
Energy: 50/100
-?????The alpha wolf that lives inside Yksar’s mine. Nothing is known about this beast, except that it rules the whole dungeon through sheer strength and fear.
As I read the window, I noticed the others looking at me worried. And when I wondered why, I started to touch my face to see if I could find out why.
Well… It wasn’t much of a wonder.
I was smiling.
An enemy this strong, and here I am getting excited.
Even when that nagging feeling wasn’t leaving my chest.
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Author's corner: Wave event!
Anyway... I will probably post a list of the stories I have in mind to write during the break on the next chapter so, this way you guys can choose one for me to post here as a side project. I really don't want to get the inertia of not writing anything at all...