‘Fisherman Joe, eh?’
According to Grandmother Ethel, a fisherman had seen the monster that resides somewhere in the Swamp of Sulfur.
When he thought of a fisherman named Joe, he couldn’t help but think of a fat man with a great beard who always held onto a bottle of Applewood Whiskey.
At a mere level 5, Orion probably shouldn’t fight it, especially alone. The closer mobs are to a starter city, the lower the level. Based on that logic, Orion could estimate that Diablo would be at least level 15, but no higher than 25.
If he could find someone that was even level 15, the pair might be able to do it. Orion at least knew strategy and combat, so he hoped that those skills would help make up his lack of levels.
However, there were two problems: one, Orion would prefer to do everything solo, and two, he didn’t know anything about how boss fights work in Genesis let alone what Diablo even does during the fight.
Orion had to simply hope that someone approached him, looking to tag along for a while. He planned to use said short-term companion until the boss fight was over. Then, they would go their separate ways.
Luckily, the first part of the plan happened. As he approached the eastern gate, Orion passed by a group of five players.
Three of the players were obviously together as they wore the same brown cape with a golden lion printed on the back. Even Orion, who was new to the game, knew the matching sigils meant the players were in a guild together.
Two of those three players wore steel armor, which meant they were considerably high in levels. The third guild member wore a variation of leather armor, which meant he wasn’t as high as the others, yet wasn’t as low as Orion. From the way it looked, the three guild members were trying to recruit the other two players.
The first player, a woman, wore a cheap set of blue robes which gave the impression she was a low level mage. Even though the robe covered her body, anybody with eyesight could still see her curvy “assets” through the cloth. Combine that with a smooth face like a model and raven hair, it was no wonder male players would try to recruit her, even if she hadn’t stayed true to her real body in character creation.
However, even with the woman’s beauty, it looked as if the higher level players were trying to recruit the male more. This player wielded a simple iron sword much like Orion’s, but unlike Orion’s starter clothing this player wore leather armor. He didn’t look special, at least to Orion, so he couldn’t help but be curious.
At the same time, he didn’t want to interfere. If he was to find a teammate for the battle against Diablo, it would have to be a loner character. One comrade he can do, two is pushing it, but five…
As he began to pass the group, eyes set toward the gate, the low level male suddenly spoke up.
“Oh, our friend is here,” the player claimed and grabbed the female mage’s wrist. As he hurried away towards Orion, he waved back to the guild. “Thanks for the invite, though!”
Orion raised a brow, but decided to keep walking. From the situation, he felt he could accurately come to the conclusion that they were simply using him to get away from an unwanted guild invite. Once they walked a ways away, the players would simply leave.
But it was not so. Time passed and the two players followed Orion all the way to the entrance of the Swamp of Sulfur in silence. Finally, Orion turned to face them.
“I’m about to go in here,” he said, using his thumb to point behind him. “So…”
“O-oh!” the boy stuttered. “Do… you mind if I go with you…?”
“Are you running from those higher leveled players?”
“Yeah… they’re part of the guild Lion’s Roar. They only want me to join them because my profession is a merchant.”
“A merchant?”
“Yeah, being a merchant increases gold looted by 5% and the chance to find rare items by 2%. We aren’t good at combat, but sometimes people drag merchants along for the passive benefits.”
“Why choose it then? Why not just choose a combat class?”
“Because… I have something to prove, I guess…” the player clenched his fist.
Orion felt like the player was pushing him to continue asking questions as to open a set of dialogue where the boy could tell Orion all about his backstory, struggles, and motivation.
It was nothing personal, but Orion didn’t really give a fuck.
“And what of your friend there,” Orion asked. Then he nodded towards the mage instead of asking personal questions.
“Oh, I forgot about you! Sorry… I don’t actually know her. She was being pressured to join though just like me so I ended up dragging her along. Sorry...”
“Don’t mind,” the woman said. Her voice sounded cool and collected, yet soft, almost like a breeze during a sunny spring afternoon. “I’m just along for the ride.”
“Well I have to kill something in here as I said and I’m not sure you two will want to go.”
“I can handle anything,” the mage assured before flicking part of her black hair back behind her shoulder to let it fall gracefully.
“Me too,” the boy joined in. “My name’s Fooly, a merchant. As I said before… heh…”
“My name’s Orion, a shade.” He opened the party tab to send the boy an invite so they could fight together. If they weren’t in a party, the loot from monsters would only go to the person who landed the final hit. This way, they could all have part of the loot.
“Kara, a theurgist,” the woman said.
‘This could work,’ he thought.
Even though he had one more player than he cared to have, this way he wouldn’t have to share his level. If they found out he was level 5, their morale would be low and they wouldn’t trust him; his new comrades would just chalk him up as not knowing as much about the game and trust their instincts over his direction.
Besides, the less information they give to each other the easier it will be to break off later.
The trio explored the swamp, easily clearing any monsters or animals, such as crocodiles, that got in their way. After half an hour, they stumbled upon a cave. As they entered, words appeared in front of their faces.
You have discovered the Cave of the Daunted!
“We need to leave,” Fooly stated.
“Why?”
“I’m pretty sure I heard somewhere that a boss lives here. He’s really tough for a level 20 boss, so people tend to not fight him and just focus on quests in early levels.”
A shadow loomed over most of Orion’s face, leaving only a sly grin. His heart picked up its pace in his chest.
‘This is it!’
Orion changed his expression to that of an innocent smile and looked to his party. “Let’s give it a shot.”
“Eh!? But-”
“You’d like to try, right Kara?”
“Naturally.”
“It’s settled then, we’ll fight Diablo.”
“Wait, how did you know his name was Diablo?” Fooly asked.
Orion tilted his head slightly. “What ever do you mean?”
“I never told you his name; I just said there was a boss here. Is this why you came to the swamp? You should have told me! I wouldn’t have come!”
“Better not leave Diablo waiting,” Orion said, brushing Fooly’s objections away.
He opened the skill menu, revealing a lone skill. At the beginning of the game, every class starts out with one skill and the player is expected to gain more via leveling as well as through quests later in the game. In the skills tab, a new window popped up with some text inside.
Phantom Strike (Active) 200 Mana 10 second cooldown
After attacking, a second attack will follow through in half a second that deals equal damage as the first.
The skill would be very helpful for “burst” damage. He wasn’t particularly skilled with a sword, so his attacks would be slow. Orion’s best bet would be to get close to Diablo, hit him a few times while also activating the skill once, then retreat out of harm’s way until he was able to use the skill again after 10 seconds.
Unless something dramatic happened that resulted in unpredictable behavior, which was by all means common, the monsters of his world typically focused their aggression to whoever was dealing the most damage.
Orion was sure that he dealt more damage than a merchant, even being under leveled. This was actually beneficial because he would draw Diablo’s aggression, or aggro, enough for Fooly to heal. Then once Orion’s combo was done and Fooly regained some health, he would back off and let Fooly resume aggro.
“Ready?”
“No!” Fooly objected. Then, he sighed and reached into his invisible inventory to pull out two health potions. “At least take these; you’ll take a lot of damage since you’re still wearing the starter armor. Why are you, by the way?”
“No time to discuss that. Let’s rock and roll.”
The cave was both cold and humid which created a sort of musky atmosphere that felt displeasing on the skin. For a few seconds, only a random drop of water from above accompanied the sounds of their footsteps. But it wasn’t long until a groan echoed through the darkness.
They paused and assumed defensive stances. The cave began to shake. Soon, a figure gradually emerged from the shadows.
The monster was at least ten feet tall and had the figure of a golem on steroids. Its skin was a mixture of mud and rotten flesh; it even radiated a foul smell. Fooly and Kara were forced to plug their noses.
As it stepped into more of the dim blue light, Orion spied three openings in the monster’s chest. It looked as if it had three hearts, each one about a foot apart and encased in greenish-brown vines like a cage.
“We have to attack those,” Fooly explained. “It has three health bars, so we have to lower its health and then destroy a heart to start damaging the following health bar.”
Diablo looked down on them, but the party couldn’t see its face. The monster had some sort of mask made out of off-white tree bark. There was a spot for its mouth that looked sealed along with two round, black holes where its eyes might’ve been.
“Wait here,” Orion said, an idea popping into his head. He unsheathed his sword and sprinted forward, directly at Diablo.
The swamp monster raised its arm and struck down, smashing the ground and causing rock to fly up.
But Orion was ready and he dashed to the side before the attack landed.
Diablo really was slow at moving and attacking, yet a trick laid up its sleeve. As Orion planted his feet on the ground after dodging the attack, something else swung at him. On the monster’s lower back were two long tentacles that were brown and scaled like a crocodile.
The right tentacle, unlike Diablo’s arm, was much faster. It moved so quickly that if Orion didn’t already have quick reflexes, he would be in a very bad position.
He raised the iron sword which collided with the scales. Going into the battle he had prepared himself for a sucker punch such as that one, but the force was much more than he anticipated.
The parry blocked half the damage, but he still lost 200 health!
The force also knocked him off his feet, flying back to where his party waited.
“How’d it go?” Fooly asked sarcastically.
“His arms are easy to dodge, but look out for his tentacles; they move quick. Fooly, you’ll have to stay in its face most of the time.”
“But-”
“No time to argue! Try to draw its aggression as much as you can. I’ll weave in and out of the fight to burst it when I can while Kara hits it from a safe distance.”
“But what about-”
“He’s coming,” Orion snapped.
Diablo screeched, causing the cave to rumble. After a second, the ground below them began to tremble as three creatures climbed from underneath the dirt.
“I tried to tell you!” Fooly said, holding his sword in front of his body.
Orion’s eyes darted around the cave.
The creatures were about half as tall as him with thin skin that wrapped around their bones tightly. It didn’t take a genius to notice how well their appearance fit the title of “ghoul”. The miniature monster’s eyes beamed red and their fangs dripped with saliva.
What caught Orion’s attention most were small symbols that circled around the ghouls’ heads. One of them was the symbol of a sword, another was a campfire, and a shield gravitated around the final ghoul.
“What are those symbols?” Orion asked.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“The person to kill the smaller creatures that a boss summons gets a buff and the symbols show what buffs they give. We should probably distribute them so that-”
“I’m taking them all,” Orion said, moving in front of his party. The ghouls moved much quicker than the boss, so Orion soon found himself fighting all three ghouls. “Start fighting the boss!”
Fooly cursed and moved forward, but Kara had no objection to the matter. She simply glided around Orion’s skirmish and focused on Diablo.
Just as she shot out a lightning bolt from her fingertip, Fooly reached the monster and began striking it with his sword.
Orion had no time to watch their fight, as he had his own.
The first ghoul lunged forward, but Orion swiftly side-stepped the beast. With one strike, Orion sliced the ghoul’s chest. The ghoul stumbled back and Orion had claimed part of its health.
But he wasn’t finished.
“Phantom Strike!” he called.
A half-transparent, blue arm appeared from behind Orion which traveled in the exact same motion as his initial strike. The phantom sword sliced through the ghoul’s body, dealing the same amount of damage as the first strike. Just as the phantom disappeared, Orion was already moving in for his third attack.
The sword slashed through the ghoul for a third time in a single second. Unfortunately Orion was still a mere level 5, so he couldn’t kill the beast in one set of burst damage. However, after dodging another attack, the fourth strike decapitated the ghoul.
The creature fell to the floor, motionless. The remaining two ghouls watched, unsure of what to do. They stood frozen like someone pissed in their cereal, stunned as to what to do next.
In the top right corner of Orion’s vision, a small symbol appeared. It was the same symbol that had circled around the ghoul he killed; a sword. A minor surge of energy pumped through his muscles and he didn’t even have to look at his stats to know his strength had increased.
When he looked at the ghouls, he couldn’t help but grin. With the new damage boost, he wondered if he could kill one of them in three strikes this time. They exchanged hesitant glances before dashing forward at the same time, teeth bearing.
Level up!
After cutting the final two ghouls down, Orion wiped a drop of blood from his mouth. By now he was used to seeing the physical changes that occur when a player is low on health, so he pulled out a small red bottle from his inventory which restored his health.
Accompanying the damage buff he had received from the first goblin, two more symbols appeared in the upper right corner of his vision. Underneath the sword was a campfire, which meant his attacks on a single target would apply a burning effect that dealt a slight amount of damage per second. The duration was ten seconds, so every ten seconds he would be able to reapply the buff.
The final symbol was that of a shield. At level 6 his defense was 5, but the buff provided him with an extra 5 defense. Now he’d be able to take a hit or two from Diablo to give Fooly a break.
At that moment, a break was exactly what Fooly needed.
“Fall back, Fooly!” Orion ordered.
Fooly held no objections and immediately began jogging backwards towards Orion, who ran to take his place. Diablo continued to chase Fooly until Orion proved that he was a bigger threat.
“Phantom strike!”
In three swift strikes, the monster stumbled backwards, crying out.
With just Fooly, Kara had to be weary of the damage she dealt; too much and Diablo would aggro her. However, with Orion’s burst damage, Kara could now release lightning bolt after bolt in rapid succession.
Diablo swung at Orion, first with his first and then with his scaled tentacle.
Again, Orion dodged the fist and blocked the tentacle. Unlike last time, Orion had an extra 5 defense, double than before! The attack stung and forced him back a few feet, but he managed to keep a solid stance.
After another strike from Kara, Diablo dropped to his knees. But he was not yet defeated.
Orion leapt into the air, grabbing onto the monster’s shoulder. The smell of flesh and mud crept into his nostrils, but he ignored them. With one stab, he forced his sword through the vines into one of the holes in Diablo’s chest and pierced a heart.
Diablo cried out as his health now reached 2/3rds. Orion felt the entire body of the monster shake as a second pair of tentacles burst from his upper back.
He let go of the flesh, but Diablo had increased his own speed. One of the new tentacles crashed into Orion’s side.
He flew to the side, only stopping once his back crashed into the cave’s wall. His vision shook and turned into a red tint; it wasn’t a realistic way of almost dying, but it was a way for the game to tell a player they were under 10% health.
This also meant that a bleed-out effect would begin and if the player didn’t eat a meal that provided health restoration or drink a health potion.
Luckily Fooly provided him with the latter, which he quickly chugged.
“Are you okay!?” Fooly called to him as he reentered the battle to draw Diablo’s aggression.
“Peachy,” Orion said.
His health quickly regenerated thanks to the potion, so he was ready to continue the battle.
Now that they were finally able to fight as a three-person party, the second health bar of Diablo deteriorated at a steady pace.
Orion would jump in a tank a few shots while bursting it down, which allowed Kara to let loose her lightning bolts at a rapid pace. Once Orion needed to heal, Fooly would take over tanking the hits and Kara emphasized more space between her spells as to not draw aggro.
Diablo soon found himself taking a lightning bolt to his second heart, revealing the final health bar.
Like before, the monster started to transform. Its mask broke at the mouth and opened at least three feet while a long, purple tongue which resembled a snake’s rolled out.
“Get back!” Orion shouted, anticipating a new attack.
Diablo spit out a venomous pool of spit that splattered onto the ground and sizzled as it corroded the rock and dirt.
Fooly had given into Orion’s demands and began to obey without objections, so he was able to dodge the poison.
Even with the addition of a new attack, they were able to constantly deal damage to Diablo.
With Orion’s direction, the party managed to take Diablo’s health to 10%
“Look out,” a voice echoed through. The three low-leveled players turned their heads to see one of the high level players that had been trying to recruit Kara and Fooly.
The player unsheathed his enormous two handed and cut directly through Diablo’s body. The swamp monster cried out as it collapsed to the floor with a thud.
Orion and his party battled the beast for at least half an hour, but the higher level player cut Diablo down in one strike.
While his party breathed sighs of relief, Orion dropped to his knees.
When a player kills a monster, most of the EXP and items went to that player’s party. If Orion had killed the party he, along with his other party members, would have received roughly 33% of the EXP each.
Because another player dealt the last hit, Orion only received 10% of the EXP.
Level up!
Level up!
Level up!
Even with the level ups, this was no time for celebration.
The higher level player spat in Fooly’s direction.
“That’s what you get for rejecting our guild invitation. You should have been glad, honored even, to join us! Think about that next time! Especially when I, the great Leodrogo, am the one to invite you!”
Fooly looked to the ground while Kara looked away, uninterested.
Leodrogo looked to Orion for the first time with disgust.
Orion’s eyes traveled up and met the other player’s. Usually, Orion went about his daily schedule feeling emptiness. Now not only did he feel an emotion, but the anger overwhelmed him.
Orion glared directly at the Leo with wide eyes. His fist clenched as he fought back the urge to slit the player’s throat right then and there.
Leodrogo, sensing the bloodlust, took a step back.
Even though Orion was clearly a lower level, the player couldn’t shake a particular feeling. A feeling of fear that seemed to seize his very soul and overwhelm his physical body.
A deep sense of regret dwelled in Leodrogo’s gut. For what; he could not say.
“Uh, a-anyway, lets go,” the player stuttered, motioning towards the other guild members that had accompanied him.
Once the guild members left the cave, Fooly approached Orion.
“Sorry… this is all my fault, isn’t it?”
Orion felt his anger quickly disperse once he looked to the merchant. He sighed, finally standing and brushing dust from his knees.
“Don’t worry about,” Orion said, beginning to take his leave.
“Can I add you as a friend…?” Fooly asked.
Orion thought about it for a moment. They’d fought together, so he felt more or less comfortable with both Kara and Fooly.
Yet a war raged in his heart.
“Next time… if we see each other again. Ask me then, and I’ll add you as a friend.”
“Promise?”
Orion returned the promise and clapped Kara on the shoulder as he passed her by. “Good work,” he told her. She smiled for the first time.
Orion left the cave to continue exploring the world of Genesis by himself.
………………………………………………………….
“So what have you been doing this week,” his therapist asked. She sat with her legs crossed on a leather chair and tapped a pen on her notebook.
“Not much,” Viktor replied.
“No? Nothing new?”
“Well… I did take your advice. What you said last week about reaching back into my childhood to find some happiness. I ended up trying out this new game everyone is talking about.”
“How do you feel so far?”
“Well, I have to admit it’s amazing. You know, when I was a kid the technology wasn’t this advanced. The first thing I did when I was in game was smile.”
“You smiled?” she repeated, uncrossing her legs and straightening her posture. She began writing into the notebook. “Because you were happy?”
“Amazed, probably. I was excited because the world looked incredible and it was huge. There’s so much adventuring I could do.”
“Video games are often violent nowadays. Do you kill anyone in the game?”
“I hunted some animals, mostly boar.”
“How did that make you feel?”
Viktor shrugged. “I didn’t feel too different, probably because they were animals. I grew up on a farm and did plenty of hunting there.”
“But then you joined the military at 17, and here you are 6 years later,” she said. “When you start killing things other than animals, do you think that feeling will change?”
“I guess we’ll have to find out.”
As he left the therapist’s office, he was forced to pause to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Dark clouds covered the moonlight, so it was nearly pitch black outside.
His pocket began to vibrate.
He pulled out his smartphone and looked at the name on the screen. He recognized it immediately, but didn’t answer it. In fact, all movement ceased for a moment.
Viktor’s eyes turned into a blank stare. Even though he looked in the phone’s direction, it was like he didn’t even see the phone. His black eyes remained half shut as if vacant.
His glare was full of emptiness.
Once the phone stopped vibrating, a few minutes passed before a message appeared, informing Viktor that he had a voicemail. He moved the phone to his ear and listened.
“Hey, what’s up bro? This Bobby, I was just calling to see what you’re up to. I mean I know you busy, but, uh, yeah… I was hoping we could talk for a bit. I don’t know, maybe text me man, I know you’re busy. I just wanna know how you been and what you been up to and stuff. You hear about Jessie? She getting married in a couple weeks, I was thinking damn. It’s kind of soon you know? She just broke up with Richie from the squad a year ago, shit feels like yesterday. I don’t really know if I’ma go.”
Pause.
“Anyway bro, I’d love to talk to you soon. You eating well? Maybe I could come over and cook you a meal. I mean, I know you grew up cooking with your grandfather and stuff so you know how to cook and shit… but I just wanna make sure you know? You doing good? Hit me back when you can bro, I know you busy, but-”
Beep.
Bobby had talked until the voicemail forced him to stop. Viktor held onto the phone for a moment before sliding it back into his pockets.
Then he went home.