*Groan**Crash*
“Phew. And that’s done. Loot them up, boys!”
Cries of “Roger” “Okay, Boss” “Oh!” replied Summer’s order. They set to work looting the plant- type monsters they had just slain.
Me? I still leech. I also helped the cooking. I could not do anything else. My repair skill was too low. Anything I repaired would have reduced durability. The same with doing the actual cooking. Too low level. Not much benefit for wasting their ingredients. At least I gained some proficiency from helping the group cooking. Just Handicraft skill proficiency though, since I was cutting meats and vegetables. Not actually finishing the dish.
*Slither**Thwack*
Summer just finished off a snake that hung down from a tree. It would go to the cooking pot too.
“You are really good with that,” I said, pointing to his bow.
“Thanks. I get a lot of practice,”replied Summer.
I shrugged and set to work. Soon we were moving again plus one Tree Snake Meat in my inventory. This particular mob was about as strong as a rabbit. Just a critter level to be killed for food, I think.
We had spent a full day inside the forest. The battle above was an example of the last sixteen we fought. We had encountered some small parties of five or six too on a quest. Summer had to apologize to them for not letting them join up their large band as it was close to full.
Some of the monsters we fought were interesting. The group we just killed was filled with Small Treants. Like its name and normal lore, it was a moving tree. They were supposed to spring on us while we passed. But several of the members had experience in this dungeon and knew better. Summer set up their own counter ambush. It was a quick battle.
Some other forms of plant monsters, like Bogman (like a humanoid moving bush. Green blood) and Ent, were exciting to fight. They were large, moving in a slow shamble. Tolan and the depressed mage had a grand time showing off with their AOE spell done in concert. I could not complain. I leveled up three times already.
“Rock. You tank that one!”
Odette was backing up to our side, the ranged one. She has the highest level and best gear among us. Also, most experienced in soaking up damage. But she had a problem with this particular monster. It was gross! I agree.
We who were treated to a sight of Odette’s rather cute refusal to tank much earlier, barely could hold our laughter. She was observing the first of us to crack. She promised the first one would be eating her shield. Nobody wanted to try it.
Rock, who stepped forward, had a wide grin on his face. He was not laughing.
More fire spells for Marlboro. This particular monster was indeed gross. It had slimy-looking tentacles that grossed Odette out. There were bulbs on its body, all over it. When you hit it with anything, it burst, treating those close to them with a shower of green ick.
Castar, one of the experienced members, said that the proper way to tank it was to stand your ground and keep the tentacles occupied. How? By letting it wrap you! Odette claimed that the tentacles were feeling her up. Yeah. I get the appeal there.
I asked Winter/Summer to construct me a bow when I saw him begin shooting. I am apparently not too terrible a shot. I can hit the monster at 40 meters. But I had to apologize a few times to Rock, as I almost hit him a few times.
I thought at least, I would be able to do some extra little damage while increasing my proficiency in the archery skill I had just gained. I have to use stone-tipped arrows though.
*Hit*
“Good shot, Winter. Maybe we can make an archer out of you yet,” Summer smirked at him.
He then released a double shot that hit pretty close to each other. I did not even know they have different arrows, like in the movies, within Royal Road. Both arrows exploded after embedding itself. It wiped Marlboro’s wealth, killing it instantly.
Winter felt a bit of envy for himself. He would be able to do cooler stuff if he was not cursed. With anyone else, he would not care. But only with Daniel, he somehow had this feeling.
“Okay, folks! This is the safe zone. Settle down and we continue this tomorrow, people. Have a good night!”
Royal Road dungeons have several safe zones where you would respawn when you logged back in. Obviously, it would be the only place you were allowed to log out safely too. Logging out outside safe zone carried risks, as your avatar still remained, apparently.
“I am all alone now, eh.”
“I am still here, Uncle Ronald.”
I turned around. Julianne had not logged out yet.
“Ah. Sorry about that. Don’t you have school?”
“I do. But I only have a lecture for one hour today. And it is already morning here. So no point sleeping. I will do it after I attend the lecture.”
“If you keep sleeping late, you will get wrinkles early later.”
That was my favorite saying when she was especially stubborn about staying awake.
“Really, Uncle Ronald. I am not falling for that anymore,”she pouted.
“It is still true. Just won’t happen in a day or two.”
We spent time talking about happenings between both of us. She still had no boyfriend. I still had not remarried and was not interested in any prospects. She was doing well in her studies and would be back for Christmas. She also hoped to see me around for the Christmas period. I promised I would be there. Then we talked about the past for a bit.
“Ah. It is time for me to go. Take care, Uncle Ronald. I will see you later!”
Odette waved her hand while logging out.
Since I had slept a lot already and was not feeling sleepy, I spent my time doing stitching. Before I left town, I tried learning Tailoring. I never realized tailoring was so hard. Six times I had to retry, before I gained the skill.
*Stitch**Stitch*
I spent the quiet time on improving my needlework. The system assist allowed a player to use preset patterns to work the product. But I disliked the feel of my hands automatically moving without my control. So I was learning manually. The slow, painful way.
*Scrape*
I saw creeper-type monsters crawling pass the safe zone. I ignored it and continued my needlework.
You gained expertise in Tailoring
I finally made my first complete product. A simple mishmash of wolf pelt cape with +1 defense.
Wolf Pelt Cape (Durability 10/10)
Def +1
Made by an amateur tailor with no real skill.
The stitchings are crooked and materials of uneven lengths were used.
Definitely needs more practice.
Yeah. I definitely needed more practice. I logged out to sleep. My body finally felt the aftereffects of my impromptu practice on swordsmanship. A pleasant sleep, regardless.
XxxxX
“Aaa….”
My muscles creaked. If I thought before sleeping that it was pretty darn painful, it felt even worse when I woke up. My whole body was so worked up that it was sore all over. I could not remember the last time I was so sore. Maybe never?
Gingerly, I got up from my bed and stretched. A mistake. The pain was not bone-shattering. It still made someone at my age walk slower, and with every support I could use.
Checking the mounted wall clock, I had about three hours to burn before our meeting time in Royal Road. I stretched some more, much slower this time, to alleviate the contracted muscles. It was one very good reason I dislike exercising.
While waiting for my toast to pop out, I drank my coffee and read the paper. The boring, usual news. This time was about elections and the candidates. Something I never cared about.
Done with my morning routine, I swung the drying pole I had bought several times, as if reminding myself I could swing a sword or something. I logged back in even though I was one hour early.
“Oh. You are early too!”
I could not remember who this male member of the group was. I remember him as the front line warrior. But nothing else.
“Ah. Yeah.”
Was my only answer. I went back to my tailoring. I think he got the sign that I wanted some quiet. He himself was melting some metal to be shaped into whatever he wanted later. We spent the quiet time like that until everyone appeared one by one, and it got noisier.
Odette was the last one to arrive. Slightly over ten minutes late.
“Okay. Let us start again.”
So Summer said.
We had not finished the monster quota for the quest when we hit the dead end. Not even close. It was a section of forest with empty land, surrounded on three sides by steep vertical cliffs. No mob was there too.
“What is with this place?” I asked.
“No idea. I have been here a couple times. We have no idea what this place is for. Maybe it is for a quest in the future. We usually just double back to the entrance.”
Replied Castar. I nodded at the explanation.
We were turning back, when I noticed something at the far end.
“Hey, Castar. Was that there when you were here last time?”
I pointed to a something jutting out on the center of the field. Everyone began gathering at the spot. Including me.
“Hey. It’s a sword, isn’t it?” One member chipped in.
“Yea. It is a sword. You know anything about this, Castar?” another member asked.
“No idea. It was not here last time I visited. Maybe they updated it?”
Everyone was scratching their head.
“How about we pull it out?” One suggested.
“Yeah. Why not? This sort of feel a little Arthurian.”
The member was referring to the sword in stone legend of King Arthur. It was a sword. But it was stuck on a rocky ground. Not a stone. Still…..
“Let us not do that?” This was me.
“Why not? There seems to be nothing wrong with this.” Everyone turned on me.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
I had bad experiences with things I did not know about in Royal Road. I had death by bunnies already on my belt. So I was not too tempted by things I did not know.
“Why not? If it is just monsters, we can kill it. We might get lucky if it is a boss. At worse, we got locked out.”
Daniel had changed from his old conservative self. The change had been going on for a while. But now, it became pretty pronounced. I held my tongue since I did not feel like arguing with him. Indeed. At worst, all of us would die and respawn later. Then we could bury Daniel together. Sure.
They were already set. Now they were arguing on who was supposed to pull it out.
“Okay! I win!”
Rock the tanker won the roll. I opted not to participate.
Rock stepped up and braced himself. He strained and strained. We thought the sword would not budge and we should give up. But with a ring, the sword came off. Everyone laughed when Rock fell on his ass. Me too.
“Hey! Did you break it, Rock?”
Rock was equally confused. He held a beautifully crafted sword with a flat end, as if broken at that spot or cut.
While we were puzzling it out, the ground rumbled. Everyone knew this sort of thing and got prepared. And we were half right and wrong.
The entrance point was buried in rubble from the quake. Then from the opposite end, the expected boss came. We were indeed fighting a boss monster. Only we could not escape. A little old style. Do or die!
Weird thing, or should have been expected? All of us were excited. The Golem boss rose to his full height, probably close to ten meters in height. Its fists were as huge as Odette.
Event Boss: Giant Earth Golem
“Lucky!” Was what everyone thought.
“Range, go back, Casters at the extreme end. Tankers, switch when you can, if it is too hard. Warriors, just don’t get hit!”
With those commands, the battle commenced. And I was idle. Totally.
The beginning of the battle was as expected. Our group (minus me) overwhelmed the minions it summoned. I never thought a shield could be pretty dangerous. She used the edge of her shield to decapitate the stone minion’s head. She then proceeded to give it a final stomp while shielding herself from more attacks. Scary scary.
Rock, our other tanker, was a solid tanker. He seemed to have no interest in showing off at all. He positioned the minions so all range and melee people with free room could score a hit without endangering themselves. I was especially impressed with how Daniel managed to shoot so accurately in the middle of the chaos. It was as if he was separate from the whole battle.
“Crimson Lord of Destruction, I beseech rain of fire. Vermillion!” Shouted Tolan, finishing his cadence.
Orval, our depressed Mage, cast the same magic too, without the extra noise. The casting was so close together that the circle on air appeared to almost overlap. Our melee began to push the mobs toward the edges of the AOE effect. The raining fireballs were slightly more pronounced against the afternoon air. I have no idea that the spells could be stacked that way. The same point of appearance. The raining fire was so thick. Almost like a flowing curtain, if one did not look too close.
From a distance, I could see the minions steadily crumbling. Impressive sounds of impacts accompanied each destruction. The boss’s hit points too, was slowly decreasing. I suddenly had a greater appreciation for my current profession. It was impressive as hell. It only caused the inconvenience I had to be more pronounced.
“Keep it up! 50% left!”
Summer yelled to keep their spirits up. The boss was not too difficult for the group. It had a pretty set attack pattern, without any variations. Only smash, hit and batter. The two tankers, Rock and Odette, could handle them easily. It had a lot of defense, however. It took us a couple hours to get it that low. We had to repair too, once.
Like I said earlier, I was standing idle. My stone arrow did zero damage. I would also die in one hit if I stood at the front.
The boss constantly spawned minions, that crumbled pretty quickly once they got exposed to <
“See, Winter? You can hold the spell in channeled state with continuous mana reduction per second after initiating it.”
After the initial wave of destruction, they scheduled themselves to trade positions when their mana was low. Orval spent his time meditating for improved mana recovery, after channeling the same magic for ten minutes. Another skill I did not have yet.
Odette and Rock managed to keep the boss penned inside the spell. Occasionally some mobs would spawn outside the AOE circle, only to be quickly manhandled to stay inside. The seconds steadily ticked away.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
‘This sort of feels like watching a bonfire,’ I idly thought.
“Hey! It stopped moving!
I checked its HP. It just ticked to 20% and slowly began to decrease further. The harangued golem, that they had managed to keep inside the rain of fire, had stopped moving. It knelt at the position Rock tanked it.
“Get back! I am moving it a little!” Tolan shouted.
Another feature of AOE spell. It was moveable, albeit rather slow. I slowly saw the circle shift until the boss was directly at the center of it. Its health steadily decreased. Was it my imagination, or was it decreasing at a slower pace?
Summer cursed loudly. The golem had not gotten out of the AOE zone. But Tolan and Orval had ceased their efforts. They now fired individual spells. At 15% health left, the boss stood back up. Its body now glowed red with immunity from fire damages.
“Need to repair!” Rock shouted.
Odette quickly covered his position. Steel weapons that the group used needed repairs more often now, than earlier. I have no idea that the boss’s physical property affect the weapon’s durability and performance. Should have expected that from a VR game with 99% realism.
I would almost say it had become a slugfest in earnest. Our two priests were kept busy healing melee teams. The boss and minions now did <
“Get back! Get back! Go to that corner! Defend yourselves. Range! Keep attacking the boss!”
Our group was slowly being overwhelmed by the <
“Okay! I am done!” With last tug, i tightened the bandage.
Castar nodded his thanks to me and jumped back into the fray. He immediately took over a dual blader’s target that was forced to retreat since his health had gotten too low. All of us knew that the fastest way was to kill the boss by burst damage. Its health was now left with 9%. But every minute, it summoned another minion. We did try that burst tactic earlier. Almost disastrously and we only chipped maybe 1%. The minions began attacking the melee from behind. And the immolation damage forced them to separate. It came dangerously close to Game Over.
“This isn’t working!”
Yeah. No shit. I can see we were slowly getting pushed back. A lot of 'ifs' probably running through everyone's head right now. If only we had not decided to pull out the sword. If we only had taken an extra member to fill up the party. If we knew it would happen this way, we should had proceeded to burst the boss when it was down. A lot of ifs, but no solution.
“You have better idea, Tolan?” Replied Summer while continuing his shooting. He was relegated to main damage now, since his performance was the least affected by the change in the boss.
Tolan did not reply. Never mind the ifs. I thought it was fun despite the likeliness of us dying and getting locked out.
“Castar!” Shouted Summer.
Castar, that managed to kill a minion, did not notice that he had moved closer to the boss than he thought. It was an accident. The boss was ramping up for another swinging blow when its flaming left hand connected to Castar’s head. Being lightly protected, Castar died instantly. Right on cue, another newly summoned minion popped up. Odette, who had noticed our predicament, quickly moved forward to take up the slack.
It suddenly struck me up that I might have something a way to seriously make contribution as I took out another fresh batch of bandages.
“Hey, Summer. I think I may have something.”
“You do? I will take anything. We are dead anyway. Just slower,” he replied while shooting pretty darn accurately. His shot hit the boss on the groin. I winced a little at the sadism. The boss was unaffected.
“Yeah. I do. But it might take a while. I have no idea how long.”
“Just do it. Cannot get worse than now, right?”
“…”
I did not reply since I was not sure. I took out my one and only Thousand Bolt Magic Scroll and set to work.
“Dammit! Not enough mana!”
I took out the <
I did all that. And asked six people to touch the dense floating ball of electricity in front of me. It looked like a compressed bolts of lightning spreading out from the center of the orb.
“This is not helping! Thanks for trying, Ronald.” Disappointed,Summer, one of the six who burned his Mana to zero was about to step out when I stopped him.
“Wait! If you step out now, it will cancel the whole process! We cannot repeat it!”
Frustrated, he began shooting from inside the circle. We used the six members with the highest Mana quantity. The two mages (Tolan and Orval), two archers (including Summer), and two priests, excluding the two doing the healing for the whole group now.
Mana Sacrifice fulfilled. Beginning final process!
It was odd since my mana did go to zero. Little bit was better than nothing, I thought, while waiting for the rest of the six sacrifice to recover their Mana. But my Mana was 50. Not 1000. I did not care for now. I whooped in triumph. There would be time to figure it out later.
Magic Field activated. Conduction rendering.
In front of me the rendering of the field appeared. It was quite detailed. I filled in the boss, party members and the little golems.
“Stickmans? Really?” Quipped Summer. He recovered a little of his cheer. He has always been fast at doing that.
“Shut up. I know my drawing skill is bad!”
20% reduced damage due to inaccurate rendering.
I sighed inwardly. I was supposed to create a rendering of the mob inside the <
Then the final step. The sky above the monster had a huge magic circle. Same with the large stickman of the boss.
“As above, so is below!”
I shouted in moment of inspired joke and stabbed my finger through the magic circle down to the stickman golem. There might be nobody that will ever gets it. But never mind.
A few seconds after a thin bolt of lightning hit from the circle above it. It did not even stagger the boss that still continued its action pummeling Odette that was hard pressed.
All six's gaze that has to be out of combat to contribute to the mana pooling screamed "That's it!?"
“Erm… that seems to be it?” I was puzzled too.
There was nothing else to the instruction. Something was missing. The movie showed impressive bolts of lightning.
“Hey, look!” One of the six pointed. I did not catch who said that as I tore my gaze to the direction of the field.
Tens of smaller magical circles began appearing on the air. It encircled the still recovering boss like a sphere. Everyone was expecting something impressive now after the rather dismal show.
“Hey! A little help here!” Odette shouted irritably from maximum healing distance.
“Okay. Get out now! It is on auto mode now!” I shooed everyone out.
“Shit! We won’t make it! It is moving!”
<
The giant golem stood up. All of us were resigned to our fate. The boss was about to finish taking his first step when my vision went white accompanied by a loud boom and the continuous noise of thunderclaps.
“Wha… what happened?”
Winter hacked and coughed. He had no idea that even in Royal Road, it was possible for dirt to get into your mouth. It even tasted like one. A quick check showed that his HP was in the red zone. 25% or less. Around him, others were getting up too.
The two tankers who got hurled to the cliff wall walked out from human-sized imprints when there were hurled in. A little shower of rocks cascaded around them.
“Man. That was crazy,” said a voice to my left.
“I saw it. It was blown up.”
Tolan spat out dirt from his mouth. He was giddy with excitement.
“Well. Everyone wanted a big bang, right?” I answered.
“Okay. Roll call!” Summer shouted.
One by one he called the party members’ name, though it should not be needed. He could check right away if he bothered to look at the party member listing.
I took in the scene in front of me. There was plenty of displaced soil. But the most notable was the large hole around 100m in front of us. A crater would be more accurate. A boss mob was supposed to stand there. We were probably showered by the bits of its remains. It was an earth golem after all.
“That was AWESOME!” Tolan, the party’s main mage, shouted. He was looking at a window.
A couple seconds later, a larger image of what he was looking at hovered on the air above him. It showed magical circles, a very large one above the golem, and a lot of smaller ones surrounding it from every angle conceivable. It was lucky thing the spell activated before the monster got out of the <>. It was about to take the first step when the spell hit.
Tolan slowed down the recording and played it on slower speed. Winter appreciated the thought. He did not have the time to observe the process.
Winter somehow thought the process looked pretty close to how a microwave would blow up an egg if it was visible. Lines of lightning shot out from every magic circle and hit the golem. There was no preamble or anything. It just hit it straight. From how the recording shook then angled away and tumbled around in slow motion, it was clear that was when we all got blown off our feet.
The recording was muted. But my ear felt it still rang from the extremely loud claps of a thousand bolts that hit at once. The screen showed flickerings too. It was bright, then dimmed and got brighter real quick, then ended.
“Hey, Winter. Think you can teach me that?” Pausing the recording at the end of the exciting part, Tolan looked at me.
“Sorry. One time only.”
Everyone else was gathering around the crater, amazed at the sight. I was amazed too. If it was real life, I would have probably left some fluid in my pants. I was, instead, exhilarated.
The aftermath. We had to climb down a crater of where the boss used to be. We blew up a large amount of its body. Only a leg was left, a couple meters outside the crater, the only bodily part outside the blast zone. The loot was down inside the crater. A small mound of it.
“Okay. 200 Gold each. Not bad. I will hold Castar and Seville’s share.”
Everyone cheered. The little golems were gone, with the papa golem gone.
“Now we split the items.”
There were six items. Three were crafting ingredients. Metals, rocks and jewels. Three were equipments. I had my eye on the sword though.
“All items are a bit on the low level for the equipment. I believe it is deserving I award the sword to Winter since he was the one that dealt the boss deathblow.”
“Yeah. Some deathblow. Groundbreaking.”
Everyone chuckled.
“It does not have high damage. But it is low on requirement. I think Winter needs a new weapon. My heart bleeds when I see him pull that copper sword.”
Damn Daniel…… Everyone guffawed.
Fossilized Sword (Durability: 100/100)
Originally made from some kind of strong wood, it has calcified.
It is now more durable because of it, also heavier and less sharp.
No idea who made the sword.
Rumored to be used to seal evil.
Damage: 15-20
+25 STR
200% Damage to spirit and demons
Requirement: None
I checked the pop up window earlier. I leveled up ten levels instantly. Also gained +1 Leadership and +1 Charisma. Not to say I am ungrateful. But I would prefer nobody touching the sword earlier. I had this eerie feeling, that I would regret using the scroll so early in the game.
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Author's Note:
1. Credit to -The Slacker- for the diligent PR
2. Credit to several people that helped with bouncing ideas, being good listener, and random talk that leads to some creative process. No idea if they wanted to be credited for now. But I will leave it open.
3. Special Credit to Veresliosi, Vim1inc, Saxenas1 for bouncing stuff around
4. Do let me know of mistakes you find. Try as me and my PR to spot them, we might miss some.
5. As promised, a serious battle. My last release for the week. Enjoy, everyone! Have a good weekend!