Eric heard Jason’s whimper of fear after the second roar echoed from the forest. He leaned over to Zari and said, “Hey drop into stealth and circle behind us. I think we’ve developed a tail.”
“Why don’t you do it?”
“You’re better suited to strike from behind. If there is trouble I can always turn and shoot easier than you could close the distance.”
“Fine,” she agreed and disappeared around a tree.
No one noticed that the second roar was different from the first. It was an easy mistake to make, a fatal one to be sure, but easy enough to make. Luckily, the party had the two most important members when fighting a boss: a tank and someone to heal the tank. Without those two the coming fight would be very different.
They trekked through the lightly wooded outskirts of the forest looking for a clear path inward. Unfortunately the only path they found was riddled with bunny-cows with red glowing eyes and who were moving much faster. The first bunny-cow to attack caught Atticus by surprise. It slammed into him and would’ve knocked him down if Bella hadn’t been right behind him. “You aren’t getting weak on us, are you wolfboy,” she whispered in his ear as she propped him back on his feet.
“These are not like the ones in the field. That one, as you saw, moved faster and I can tell you it definitely hits harder. I’m betting they are elite versions sent here to guard the boss. Phen, looks like you were right. If they are frenzying like this, it is probably due to the killing a whole bunch of them and that means the roar was some bunny-cow boss. I’ll tank it and try and grab the adds in case I can get my one shots going to keep myself healed up. You all need to focus the boss down. I’ll taunt if it tries to go after someone else, but I’m going to need Phen to keep an eye on my health. I don’t want to die out here. Where’s Zari,” Atticus said trying to regroup.
“She’s checking on something for me. She shouldn’t be too much longer,” Eric said.
As he was speaking, the team, minus Zari and Atticus froze from paralysis and James sauntered out of the forest. “Not so smug now that you assholes can’t move. It takes you whole team to fight these weak monsters? Pathetic. I should just kill you all now for the disrespect you gave me.”
Atticus stepped forward, “Did you learn not to mess with us last time? Do I need to teach you how not to be an asshole again?”
“How, how are you not paralyzed? I made sure you were targeted. You have fucking hax don’t you?”
“Shut up kid. Release the others and run away or I’ll kill you again.”
“You don’t scare me, you were just lucky last time. You must’ve scored a critical hit or something,” James said, his voice cracking with fear.
Atticus strode forward, “You sure you want to test that out. I would be more than happy to one-shot you again.”
James paled and before he could turn and run Zari stabbed him in the back and said, “This is for looking at me like I’m a piece of meat shithead. Also, did you shit yourself because you reek.”
His health was very low and he fled from the group. Zari let him run, laughing at his awkward gait, “Look at him run, he definitely shat himself. What a loser.”
“Enough, he shouldn’t bother us again. Let’s finish strategizing,” Atticus said, “Zari, once I grab aggro for the boss slip behind it and do your thing. But please for the love of god do not attack it until I’ve grabbed aggro solidly. I’ve had too many boss encounters go sideways because the DPS didn’t let me grab aggro in time.”
“You can count on me, shaggy dog.” She saluted.
They entered a clearing after Phen cleared the paralysis off everyone with a dispel. They found another reason to love their build as they didn’t need to move to cast thanks to their [From Thought into Being] trait. The only downside was they didn’t think to dispel Atticus who froze as soon as he taunted the very large bunny-cow in the middle of the clearing.
***
“What a bunch of haxxor noobs. People like them ruin the game. Partying up and pretending to be friends. Oh and I’m going to get that bitch back. Mark my words you stupid little c-,” A large brown snake chose that moment to drop on his head from the trees. It wrapped itself around his neck and bit his face. And once again, he found himself staring down a respawn timer.
***
Atticus was confused. He should be able to move, but he was frozen in place. It wasn’t fear that was holding him back. He knew this was just a game. He glanced at his debuffs. Fuck, the paralysis took hold, and at the worst time too. That James kid might even get credit if he died because of this. What a twist of irony if that happened.
Two of the enraged bunny-cows flanked the massive one. No one had any identification abilities yet so they didn’t know what it was called. But everyone was expecting Atticus to hit one after he got hit by the boss. Not one of them expected him to be trampled over and get knocked prone by the monster.
Phen dropped a heal over time on him and then one on themselves to keep them from killing themselves while casting. The others tried to rally and pull aggro, but Atticus’s taunt combined with his natural aggro boost from reducing damage made it nearly impossible for them to pull aggro from him. Zari took the initiative and backstabbed the adds killing them quickly to give the team’s tank a better chance to stay alive. Shortly after the battle began, the loudest roar any had ever heard came from the forest across the clearing and a massive bear-like creature with a huge rack of antlers charged out and slammed into the boss bunny-cow. This freed Atticus, who was still paralyzed, from the bunny-cow but was a complication they weren’t ready for. A few more of the crazed bunny-cows joined the fight against the big bear monster but he wasn’t going to let them go to waste. He tried to activate his [Taunting Yell] but since he couldn’t open his mouth, he couldn’t shout. His health kept ticking up every couple of seconds and he was grateful that Phen was healing him. The timer for the paralysis was ticking down, but he still had close to a minute to go. That James kid had way too much power if he could paralyze people for over a minute. Thankfully Phen noticed that he wasn’t getting up and threw a dispel his way just in case.
Finally free of the spell that caused him so much trouble he used his taunt to regain aggro on the enemies. Thanks to his time being pummeled while on the ground he had a lot of damage to deal with his [Punishing Strike] the two smaller bunny-cows had already died to the bear monster, so he taunted both bosses. He let them both land a few more hits on him before he attacked the bunny-cow boss. Man he really needed a way to identify the creatures of this world. But his attack did over 250 points of damage and killed the already injured boss. He almost used his [Barbarian’s Cleave] ability, but decided to save the extra damage for another [Punishing Strike] since the other boss was still focused on him.
Meanwhile, Eric was launching crossbow bolts three at a time into the bear-monster’s flank on one side and Bella was unleashing rapid combo punches on the other. Zari was still trying to get in position but there were a few remaining bunny-cows trickling in from the forest that she was dealing with. Atticus swung the bladed end of his weapon at the boss’s face but the monster moved at the last second causing his weapon to get tangled up in the creature’s antlers.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Fuck. I’m going to have to get up there and untangle my weapon,” he shouted.
“I’ll get it, just drop another taunt when I get close. I don’t want him focusing me,” Phen yelled down at him.
He gave a thumbs up and tried not to get jerked around by the thrashing monster. He taunted it again, just to make sure he still had aggro as Phen landed gently on it head and began untangling his weapon. Phen succeed it freeing the weapon but didn’t get away fast enough when it thrashed and caught them with an antler sending them crashing into a nearby tree. Atticus had seen enough, and been hit enough by the creature’s massive paws that he felt it was a good time to unleash his final [Punishing Strike]. He ran in and sliced at the creature’s neck while he activated the ability. He only did 90 damage with his attack, but it was enough to kill the boss. A notification popped up on his screen as soon as the enemy died.
Congratulations!
You landed the final blow on the two bosses that were competing for territory outside of the Training Village in a single battle. You have earned the activated title “Who’s the Boss Now?” granting you the ability to take over and become the boss of a certain zone (bosses have several tiers and each tier controls a larger zone, all the way up until a boss is the realm raid boss) . Be warned, if you choose to activate this title you can’t venture to other realms until you’ve cleared your current realm of all bosses before any respawn becoming the realm raid boss in the process. Also, once it’s activated your stats increase by 50% and your XP modifier drops by 50%. Once you clear your current realm of bosses you receive a bonus random racial upgrade that synergizes with your class core and subcores without an additional penalties, this can happen once per realm. If you leave the realm before activating the title you will lose it and not be able to regain it in the future.
“Uh, guys? Did any of you just receive a title,” he asked.
“Nope, not me’,” Eric said.
The others echoed him and Atticus decided to play it safe for the moment, “Damn I was hoping we would get a world’s first or something. Let’s see if they dropped any loot.”
“Hell yeah!” Bella shouted and threw a fist into the air. “Loot!”
After finding the loot sacks, Eric skinned and harvested various bits from the bosses, “I can turn these into armor and probably use the rest to make myself a better weapon.”
“Hell most of us probably need to upgrade our weapons after this fight. My rapier is starting to crack,” Zari said and then gestured to Atticus, “and it looks like you’ve got a few links that are close to breaking.”
“Who knows, maybe in the loot sacks there are replacements for both of you. Some of us don’t need weapons or armor for that matter,” Phen said.
“You never know it could drop magical items that boost attributes, though that’s probably a few levels away from us. Speaking of, what are everyone’s levels?” Atticus asked.
They shared their character sheets as they walked. Not a single one of them was below level seven with Atticus and Zari closing in on level 10. They went back to the farmhouse to turn in the now obsolete quest. Eric wanted to pick up an identification trait that he thought might help his build and others wanted one too. It never hurt to know what you were up against.
“Guys, I’m really close to leveling. Like I’ll only need around 400 XP after we turn in the quest. Anyone want to stick around and help me get to level 8,” Bella asked.
Phen shrugged. “Let’s see if we get anything for killing the bosses before we worry about that. I have a hunch we just completed the next step in the questline.”
Phen was right of course. They received and completed three more quests from the farmer. They each got a level and Bella got two for killing the bosses and completing the associated quests. As they were leaving, Atticus pulled aside the farmer and asked, “How long do the bosses usually take to respawn?”
“Oh, about a week or so. But never longer than two weeks,” the old woman replied.
He thanked her and followed after the others.
“Planning on farming some bosses, Flea-Brain?” Zari asked.
“Could you not? You about gave me a fucking heart attack,” he said jumping.
She chuckled evilly, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“If I decide to share with the class I promise you will be the first to know. But until then I’ve got some thinking I need to do.”
“I’ll leave you to it, Atticus.”
“Thanks, Blood-Sucker,” he said teasing her.
“Oh, it is on now.”
They all made it safely back to the village. Exhaustion had caught up and they stumbled into the nearest inn to the gate. Once safely in their rooms they logged out.
***
Atticus had a decision to make. Was he going to activate his new title and possible get stuck forever in the training realm or would he move on and lose the benefits. It seemed like a no brainer, extra power was always welcome. But he was pretty sure he would be stuck at level 15 until he met the requirements and he wasn’t foolish enough to think that any experience he earned past it he would keep. Another factor for his decision were the others, would he tell them and enlist their help or would he pretend like nothing changed. He figured since he was living with them it would be hard for him to keep it a secret forever.
The next morning he was the first one up. He made a large breakfast spread. Bacon, scrambled eggs, sausages, pancakes, hash browns, the whole works. He hoped by making this much food he could get on the groups goodside before sharing his secret. That way they might not be so mad at him.
Zari was the last one to wake up, but it was hard to resist the smells of delicious food cooking. She hated whomever it was that was torturing her with false promises and hope. Still, her stomach wouldn’t stop demand she investigate so she got out of bed and pulled an oversized sweater on over her pajamas. She was surprised by the veritable feast Atticus made.
“All of that isn’t just for you, is it,” Zari asked.
“Nope, and now that you’re up everyone can begin getting food.”
“Sweet!”
After breakfast but before anyone got up to do dishes Atticus said, “I hope you guys enjoyed breakfast. I actually had something I wanted to talk to you guys about.”
Everyone looked over to him. He paused, gathering his words, “I misled you guys after the boss fight last night. I got a title from landing the two final blows on the bosses. I haven’t activated it yet because I would be trapped in the training realm until I completed certain requirements which would mean I would be stuck at level fifteen for who knows how long until I can complete the required task for the quest.”
“Do you get any bonuses from the title and what is the quest,” Phen asked.
“Well, the quest is I have to kill every single boss in the Training Realm before any respawn. But I get a fifty-percent increase to my stats and I can challenge bosses to take over their zones. It does come with another drawback that my XP modifier drops down to point four. And if I don’t activate it before I leave the realm I lose it and can never regain it,” he answered.
“Hmm. That is a pretty interesting thing. I wonder if other titles give benefits like that, maybe that is a good way to get stronger aside from leveling,” Eric said.
“I can answer a little of that since I have a different title already. I have the ‘Manaless’ title but it doesn’t do anything for me other than let other people know that I don’t have mana,” Atticus said.
“Still, that could be an outlier. I’ll investigate when we get back into the game and see if I can’t turn up any more information,” Eric responded.
“Why tell us this though? You could’ve just kept this a secret and done your own thing,” Bella asked.
“Well, that’s because if I decide to go for it you guys will need to find a new tank,” Atticus said.
“You can handle yourself. I want to get past my training stage and see the other realms. But I’d hate to split up the team if some decide to join you. This might be the fastest way to get to level fifteen and get out of here,” Phen said.
“It seems like the best option, honestly,” Eric said, “I say go for it. I’m sure we can meet up later once you make it.
“Count me out, your fleabitten wolfkin can do his own thing. I’ve got to see the rest of the game,” Zari said.
“I’m with Phen on this one. They have the right idea. Plus, I can off-tank for the others though I don’t generate much aggro.” Bella said
“Don’t worry about aggro, it’ll probably all be on me. I might not have been completely honest with you all at the beginning,” Phen said, “You see, I have two class cores I’m also a powerful pyromancer and aeromancer. I’ve just been healing since that was what the team needed. With my subcores and traits combined with my flying I can pull and hold aggro outside of their range.”
“Wow, lots of bombshells being dropped in here,” Zari said, “Anyone else have a secret to share or a lie they want to come clean about?”
Everyone shook their heads. Atticus said, “Well that settles it then. Thanks for all of your help and I hope to see you after I get done hunting the bosses. Good luck with your training everyone.” He left them with the pile of dishes.
Once he arrived in his office he picked up his helmet and stared at it. His hopes for getting them to help him with his quest had been dashed. Well, they at least supported him going for it and meeting up later. Hopefully, they didn’t find a permanent replacement for him before he was finished.