Something inside the house had caught on fire, so we didn’t kibitz for very long. I took a jog around the house, casting my new Firestorm spell at the walls. We didn’t even try to barricade the mobs in the first time. The zone was built like a video game, but we weren’t playing it that way. We’d yet to be overwhelmed by anything, so I think we were feeling invulnerable. By the time I made it back to stand next to Dom, I wondered if maybe we’d taken on more than we could handle.
I first saw the full burn of the house in Dom’s eyes, as I jogged back up next to him. When I turned around, I had to admit it was a fierce beauty.
“If only I was a pyro,” he clicked his tongue and gave a signature heavy sigh.
“If only your heavy sighs could kill,” I snarked, bumping my shoulder with his.
“Funny,” he flicked his finger at my shoulder.
Mounds of flame began to move through the collapsing framework of a house that had been made almost completely of kindling. The upper levels were already sinking down onto the first floor, adding fuel. I cast Dust Devil at the front porch in several sections, trying to fan the flames to do the max amount of damage to those mounds of moving flame. The mounds were vaguely shaped as humans, but I knew they were mostly the zombie servants. The problem was that there were a lot of them.
“Dom,” I worried as the mounds began to detach from the house. They had to completely clear the burning building to be able to identify them from the flames behind them.
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 780/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
“I see them,” he started backing up and I backed up with him, but our eyes were glued to the house.
When the first spells started to come out of them, we didn’t realize what they were until they got close enough that we couldn’t avoid them.
Health -440 (17,228/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
That is what ten Fireballs looks like in damage. There were more zombies than that, but only about ten Fire Spirits were now after us.
“I think you pissed off the house,” Terra was only loping to keep up with us.
“Zone!” Dom and I cried out together, but as we were running for the zone, my mind was calculating. My mind worked lightning fast with all the stat bumps we’d been grinding. I had thirty-five rounds to live at this rate, but Dom had a little less, so I was going to work with thirty rounds before I figured we had to hit that zone line. I got the idea that I’d pissed something off and that maybe we’d been a little too complacent with our disregard for the game aspects, but while this was a great deal of damage for this zone, did it really compare to our inflated health pools?
Dom and I both cast Rain and we managed to hit three different Fire Spirits with the spell, but it was hard to watch them and pull the raincloud with it to do any damage. All we really managed to do was take out their healing and even that was only on the three we hit with it. They were spread out.
Health -460 (16,756/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 680/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 680/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 680/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 680/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 680/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 680/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 680/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 680/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 680/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 680/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
My Fireball cost a hundred and sixty mana, but these guys were casting it and only losing a hundred mana per cast. We now had twenty-nine rounds, but they could only sustain the cast of another six Fireballs. What would they do after that? Especially if they couldn’t catch us. We’d been playing EQ before they made it too easy.
“See if we can get them in a group!” I called to Dom, who gave me a look like I was crazy, but we had the health and maybe we could do it. We had the time to try and if I could get from Qeynos to Freeport in the first EQ as a naked newbie, then maybe we could do this too.
“Joooy,” Dom panted out. “Like Hill Giants only with Fireball.” He matched my pace and threw two more Rain spells. This time we got four more to lose their healing. I’d been kiting Hill Giants as soon as I had snares and dots, several levels before most people ever hit that zone.
Health -420 (16,324/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
We got close to our cattle pen and then veered so that we took the mobs in a large circle of the graveyard. We ran slightly faster than the Fire Spirits. Like dutiful little mobbies, they circled after us, grouping together so that our next cast of Rain not only took out their healing, but it also did just a little bit of damage. Not enough to make this work yet, but it was something.
Health -470 (15,842/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 843/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 871/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 866/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 862/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 580/880)
“They’ve only got five of those left,” Dom was figuring out the numbers too, as we ran and cast. I was just glad we didn’t have to stop to cast our spells like we had in EQ. All I had to be able to do was snap my fingers and I was dual wielding Fireballs. The problem was that Fireball wasn’t going to work against these guys. It would probably heal them.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“That’s still got our health over ten thousand when they’re out of mana,” I called back to him. I sifted through my spells as I cast and then kept rain over our group of raging infernos.
Health -450 (15,380/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 860/880) (Mana 480/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 804/880) (Mana 480/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 821/880) (Mana 480/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 832/880) (Mana 480/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 875/880) (Mana 480/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 862/880) (Mana 480/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 855/880) (Mana 480/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 871/880) (Mana 480/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 868/880) (Mana 480/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 480/880)
Bleach was bad, as it would only intensify the heat. Poison only really worked well on live flesh, and even Dust Devil would only fan the flames. Rain was doing damage and knowing that they couldn’t sustain the current damage levels past their mana, we could take the time, but there had to be something better to use.
“Earth beats fire,” Dom puffed out, switching to Stone Skin. I kept up the water for this round but watched his spell for its effect. The problem was that the Stone Skin spell was one of our lowest elemental spells. We used it as a buff more than an attack, except for the Vampire Lord.
Health -410 (14,958/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 840/880) (Mana 380/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 780/880) (Mana 380/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 803/880) (Mana 380/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 812/880) (Mana 380/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 858/880) (Mana 380/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 861/880) (Mana 380/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 832/880) (Mana 380/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 841/880) (Mana 380/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 828/880) (Mana 380/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 872/880) (Mana 380/880)
We’d run in a complete circle around these guys at this point, so they were stuck there in the middle, changing direction with us and compacted for ease of extermination. His stone-based spell seemed to work as well as the water spell even though it was lower level, so I switched to that one.
“Incoming!” I heard Terra right before we got hit with it.
Health -890 (14,056/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 823/880) (Mana 280/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 762/880) (Mana 280/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 791/880) (Mana 280/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 799/880) (Mana 280/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 828/880) (Mana 280/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 849/880) (Mana 280/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 815/880) (Mana 280/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 841/880) (Mana 280/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 828/880) (Mana 280/880)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 872/880) (Mana 280/880)
“What the hell?!” I cried out, my nice calculations tanked as another dozen of the things came out of the house behind us. They had the speed of the zombies, but were the same Fire Spirits we were already fighting.
Dom got quiet. We ran in the same large circle, but we could no longer keep them all separate. That was another thirty-five hundred health we’d lose just in the Fireballs of the newest set of mobs exiting the house. If every wave did the same kind of damage but nothing more, we could handle maybe four waves. We just weren’t doing enough damage.
Health -860 (13,184/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 852/880) (Mana 180/880)
I stopped keeping track of the Fire Spirits individually, just taking a read on one each round and trusted my original math. As long as no more than twenty more of the Fire Spirits came out of the house, we could still withstand the damage they were currently doing, but I was at a loss as to how to dink down their health pools. We were barely doing an average of twenty damage per round to them, and while we were hitting them all at the same time, that was forty-four rounds.
Health -890 (12,282/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 802/880) (Mana 80/880)
I tried to remember how many zombies had been on the top floors. Had they just turned them all into Fire Spirits? I had a fleeting thought that Fizzbarren was cheating again, but I squashed it as fast as it spawned. If he did have a hand in it, he’d be reading my thoughts carefully. It was possible that there were forty or less of the zombies, but if the waves of Fire Spirits included mobs from the basement levels, it really was going to go very badly for us.
Health -870 (11,400/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 480/880)
As we rounded the corner, I kept an eye on the house to see if more were coming out. The first round of mobs were out of mana, but the newer ones were making up for it. Sure enough, another round were coming out just as we were running the arc of our circle that took us to the side of the graveyard. At least they hadn’t managed to hit us in the back like the first reinforcements had, but Fireball did the same amount of damage even as a surprise attack.
Health -840 (10,518/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 880/880) (Mana 780/880) – Burning (+25/5 seconds)
The newest ones still had full health and their heals until we managed to get them all together in the middle where they could be hit with my Rain and Dom’s Stone Skin spells. There is a nausea that comes with losing a third of your health that I’d never experienced before. It was getting harder to run. That sick feeling in my stomach reminded me of when I hadn’t been able to walk this long much less run full out. I might have the Constitution for it now, but my mind remembered when I hadn’t.
“Just keep running,” Dom prodded me, his chin firming even as I slowed. “We’ve got this. Let’s show him what a real gamer girlfriend can do.”
It was something Dom had said to me when Beau had gotten so mad about us becoming a couple. Beau had been subtle, but it had been hard for me. All I’d wanted to do was write music with him, but Beau had wanted the harem, the fame, and just something more than anything I’d ever wanted. In the end, Beau had refused to write anything with me. I’d told Dom that maybe my lyrics just weren’t good enough. Dom had said it was Beau’s music that wasn’t good enough. I’d said that maybe I was just the gamer girlfriend Beau thought I was. Dom had made that reply. It hadn’t helped as much back then as it did right at the moment that the fourth wave broke out of the house.
Health -440 (6,812/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 411/880) (Mana 80/880)
The Fire Spirits with depleted mana didn’t have anything left to throw at us, so it really was a matter of attrition and stamina at that point. We might only have been doing around twenty points of damage a round to them but our mana wasn’t going to run out. We kept our clouds over their massive group, so we didn’t have to use up mana recasting it to do more damage. Rain lasted ten rounds, so the other nine rounds we were casting the stone spell.
Health -640 (3,812/17,680) – Burning (-12/5 seconds)
Fire Spirit – Level 20 (Health 411/880) (Mana 80/880)
A fifth wave had come out, but there were only three in the group, so we ground. We ground until their mana was exhausted. We ground until I thought I couldn’t run anymore. If the nausea had been bad at a third of my health being lost, being down to less than a sixth of my health made me completely incapable of doing even the simple math. All I knew was that I had to keep running and casting.
You have killed a Fire Spirit – Exp +440 (2,762/350,315)
Three minutes can feel like forever. It was a little over that before the first one fell. The Fireballs had stopped, so we’d cast a few Create Water spells on ourselves to put out the flames. It helped with the heat and nausea, but between our rain and that fire, even the air changed. It was thick with evaporated water that didn’t hurt us as much as it did the Fire Spirits.
“Nice,” Dom panted out, casting the stone-based spell. “Stone Skin upgraded to Cement Shoes.”
This finally did a little more damage. On top of that, it rooted the ones he hit to a single position. We didn’t get to stop running because it only affected one at a time, but that one was stuck for twenty rounds. I was not peeved that he got the upgrade before me. Not at all. I’m not that competitive or petty. I just felt the need to catch up, making me cast more of the spell than I had before.
Once we were both casting Cement Shoes, the second wave was dropping off. By the time the water-based spell leveled for me, there were only two measly Fire Spirits left to feel the wrath of my Thunderstorm. Whatever.
We flopped back on a pile dirt and watched the house burn to the ground. We had to rest enough to cast heals, but we got meditation up a bit, Terra enjoying a massive petting session between us.
“I hope that we are NOT doing that again,” Terra fussed from ten feet away from us, having gotten overstimulated by all the petting we’d done to even get our mana to half. We balanced healing with mana restoration. We hadn’t gotten to the cleaning or repairing of our stuff.
“No,” I breathed out, thinking of how to find a recipe for marshmallows. I missed s’mores. I missed marshmallows. I missed sanity. “I’m not normally into book burning, but…”
“Those books?” Dom thumped his head back onto the ground behind him. “I’m actually not even a little disappointed.”
Luckily it takes a good long while for a house to completely burn. We were content to watch it. I was ready for a bath, a bottle of wine, and a box of chocolates. I could do all but the chocolates right now, but I was too tired to pull a bathtub out of my inventory, use Create Water enough to fill it, and use Fireball enough on it to heat it up. The wine and glasses were in my inventory, compliments of the Vampire Lord’s wine cellar, but even that was too much trouble until we were healed.
“Is that?” I stared at the smoldering ashes about a half hour later. “Moving?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Terra lifted her head.
“If the house comes alive, I’m out of here,” Dom perked up from his nap, but only barely. He too probably thought I was kidding.
“Not kidding,” I answered them both as the denizens of the basement rooms began to climb out of the cooling ashes. I cast repair on both our outfits just to make sure they didn’t fall off our bodies in another fight. “I think that may be the Torturer.”
“The one with the cat-o-nine?” Dom pushed up onto his elbows. “He didn’t drop it either of the previous two times we killed him. I was hoping maybe it was a rare drop or something.”
“It is the Torturer,” I remarked, casually, dusting off my hands.
“Don’t get up,” Dom put one hand on my arm and used the other to cast Cement Shoes on the Torturer.
“Okay.” I pulled up my knees in a comfortable sitting position and blasted the Torturer with Fireball.
“I didn’t like him touching you with that thing,” Dom sat up only enough to be able to cast with both hands. He cast poison. Dom had found a new lazy way to defeat mobs.
“I like it,” and I was talking about our new fighting technique, not the whip.
Dom’s eyes sparkled a bit with mischief as he purposely misunderstood me. I didn’t protest. I liked that smile on my husband’s face.
Dom had to recast Cement Shoes to keep the whip-wielding Torturer still, but we didn’t even have to get up. We did have to get up to fight the pack of werewolves that pulled up out of the ashes next, but after the fight with the Fire Spirits, we were pretty lackadaisical about it. I guess we kind of had been before, but now that we were tired, we preferred a gunshot to a long sword duel.