<>

I woke up with a start, shuddering.

It was cold. The first thing I noticed. A shiver crept up my back and I felt my body curl itself closer.

Face first against flat stone, my head felt like it’s being sat on by a bag of bricks. Didn’t help that it was loud, very loud. A person’s voice, outrage, with the sound of their footsteps echoing along with every hard stomp.

Disoriented as I was, I could only manage to follow along mid-sentence.

“ -levels we are now, our damage output is less than the amount the boss regenerates. Hit it all you want, Ayako, it’ll just out-heal anything you do. The update screwed us all over.”

To the left, just as exasperated, another voice began to assail my eardrums.

“So die then, is that what you’re trying to say? Made it this far - fuck it, right? I mean, what are we against a bunch of numbers and percentages on a patch note?”

“You want to be responsible for genocide, then go ahead, be my guest! Afterward, when you’re all dropping like flies, don’t you even dare claim I didn’t tell you so. God, you made one speech and you suddenly think you know it all, don’t you?”

“We don’t try we die either way! So I’m asking you, what the hell’s the difference? Between dying then and dying later, isn’t it better to at least put up a fucking fight for your life rather than just stand there playing with your goddamn hand all night?”

With my head pounding like a sledgehammer, and with an argument soaring to its peak, I had little choice but to intervene, groaning weakly as I did.

“I swear, man... you guys are just one wrong word away from putting your hands on each other’s neck. Can’t you two just relax?”

Hearing no retort, I slowly rose up from my little nap, my eyes scouring all around assessing the situation.

Jin to the right, a heavy scowl on his face, squeezing his detached hand like a little stress ball with all the fiber he could muster.

“Finally decide to wake up, have you?” He said, his expression twisting to something close to a sneer. “About time.”

“Ignore him,” muttered Ayako, her eyes gleaming like daggers. “Little devy-boy is just upset because his numbers are all wrong.”

Before another word could escape from both of them, I stepped in again, “Ah! I said that’s enough. Timeout. Or you’re both going in the corner.”

The animosity between these two was brewing like a goddamn storm. Anything they say could set the other off, so with that being the case here, somehow I needed to take the reins of the conversation. Be the middleman, where they both could speak through me, and I could speak to them.

For now, I’ve quelled the thunder, giving me another chance to survey our surroundings, because just with the first glance through, I could tell something was off about the room.

The layout was different, many things were present where they weren’t previously. Crumbling pillars, bits of debris strewn about haphazardly, and some dusty chests still sealed shut amidst everything else.

“Where are we?” I asked both of them.

“We were hoping you could tell us that,” Jin replied, crossing his arms. “Removed out-of-bounds location, that’s what the update said. Sukuinote must have switched our coordinates to someplace else.”

With a little shift in eye-level, I could already pinpoint where we were. At least I still have the map with me.

“Not a bad place to wind up at actually,” I said, finally standing back up. ”A bit of a walk north of here and we’re practically at the boss room.”

“Well, would you look at that,” said Ayako, looking a lot more pleased upon hearing the news, “Half the work is already done for us.”

“Yeah, it’s convenient alright,” Jin muttered, meeting me with an expression full of doubt. “A bit too convenient if you ask me.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“I’m inclined to agree,” I said, nodding my head.

Ayako interjected in with a dull groan, “Oh, don’t start with the conspiracy theories now, please. We’ll just be heading nowhere real fast if we just sit here on our asses theorizing what might be out there instead of just leaving the room and finding out for ourselves. Don’t you think we should just go?”

Apart from pursing his lips, Jin did not react in any substantial way. Apparently, his way of avoiding an argument with Ayako is to just pretend he didn’t hear anything at all and stay silent on the matter.

Good on him, he’s learning.

To Ayako, I also nodded my head, “I’m inclined to agree.”

Bolstered by my compliance, Ayako clasped her hands together, looking satisfied with the way things were going, “Then let’s not waste any time. I said we’d meet up at 8, it’s almost 7:30. Let’s go meet our guild members.

She went on the move, passing under the only archway leading out. Again Jin just merely stared in silence after her, only moving once I urged him on with a look that simply stated to just bear with it for now.

So off we went, trudging on through another assortment of dark, musty corridors that never seemed to end. Except, as we walked onwards, we found that things aren’t exactly the same as they once were.

Some things have differed from how they originally were in the time between updates.

Firstly, the narrow halls of stone were now emblazoned with the signs of age. Sporadic cracks lined the walls, with hollow fissures spilling dirt and dust as we passed on by.

Blazing torches suspended by iron holders affixed to the dungeon walls, casting away the perpetual darkness from before, allowing finally for a wider range of vision and security.

In terms of ambiance, it just got a whole lot more atmospheric. The chilly howl of the wind breezing past our faces, the creaks, and rumbles of decrepit stone when our feet would tread upon loose stone.

There were many other things too that had changed, but those ones, in particular, stood out to me most.

“The update,” Jin said, observing a patch of moss growing on damp stone. “It did list a couple of quality of life changes.”

I spun in my place, noticing a thick bundle of cobwebs from up high, clinging to the ceiling.

“They’re all looking like pretty standard stuff to me,” I said, then raised an eyebrow, “My question is, why wasn’t this stuff included from the beginning? Did I really pay that much money for a game that wasn’t even complete?”

Jin looked at me affront, “What do you mean? It’s… it’s a live service type of game, we were gonna add all of these things… eventually.”

“Yeah,” I muttered back at him, shaking my head. “Eventually.”

From far up ahead of us, Ayako was still progressing onward, pausing very little to examine all the new features. Occasionally upon reaching a crossroad she’d stop, turn back to me and ask what direction to go next which I would then comply after a quick consultation on the map in my HUD.

Repeat the process of times and we were almost there. Anticipation has got her making greater strides forcing us to keep with her pace with larger steps. It was only at this point in time that Jin decided he wanted to talk again.

“You had a look at the patch notes, right?”

I glanced at him once, before continuing to make haste, “I did.”

From the solemnity in his expression, it seems he had decided to pick up where the argument last left off.

“A 15% damage decrease doesn’t sound like much but it adds up over time,” He spoke softly, evidently trying to not attract Ayako’s attention, “What needed 2 hits now needs 4. Boss is no pushover either, with passive healing at its disposal, somehow we’re gonna need to keep doing damage without any pause in between if we’re ever gonna stand a chance here.”

“Right… did you account at least for the number of people that’ll be joining us?”

He shook his head gravely, “Sora, Sukuinote nerfed us. However many Ayako convinced, I doubt as many back then would be as gung-ho about it now that the patch has happened. I’d say 30-40 people at best would be there and that’s being optimistic.”

“Alright, Jin, once we’re there, do me a favor and not share this information with anyone else. It’s not exactly the type of thing that’ll raise morale.”

“Realistically, Sora, we would barely stand a chance here, you wanna keep going with this?”

“Realistically, Jin, we don’t really have much choice on the matter.” I fired back, “NPCs could be slaughtering a party right now as we speak. You’d rather wait until there is no one else left but us? We either do this now or we don’t do this at all, you choose.”

When he didn’t answer me after a while, I decided that it was time for a change in subject matter.

“You know, they’re calling me First Priority Victim out there it seems,” I looked at him. “Any idea what it means?”

A slight reproachful glance my way, before he muttered, “I wouldn’t know. If I had to guess, with you being the one that warned everyone, they must think you must know something about all this.”

“But I don’t though.”

“They don’t know that,“ Jin said, sighing. “Most likely they don’t know anything at all.”

“I don’t suppose you got like any - ‘but on the bright side’ news to offer do you? It’ll be a nice change of pace for once.”

“Just trying to be realistic.”

“Then realistically speaking, you’re more of a pessimist than I am. You seriously gotta stop before you send someone to the point of no return.”

He gave out a small scoff, “We somehow beat the boss the way we are and you’ll never hear a word of doubt from me again. That I can promise you.”

A statement that drew a chuckle out of me.

“Then just for the sake of proving you wrong - challenge accepted.”